- Corporate Socialism, Not Capitalism
- Innovators in Action
- Watch the Debate with Bob Barr at Reason’s DC Office or Online
- McCain Resurrects an Old Stunt
- Reason.com’s First-Ever Webathon
- New at Reason.org and Reason.com
Corporate Socialism, Not Capitalism
In his FoxNews.com column, Reason magazine’s Radley Balko writes, “When you, Joe Citizen, spend frivolously and default on your loans, the bank takes your house. When the government spends your tax dollars frivolously, it simply cooks the books to cover its excesses. When the books are left in ashes, the government just takes more of your money, or it prints more money, leaving the money it hasn’t already taken from you devalued. Over the last few weeks, we’ve learned that you now face the prospect of an additional indignity: When your neighbor’s bank spends frivolously and defaults on its loans, the government’s going to take your money then too, to keep the bank in business. Many commenters have blamed all of this on capitalism. This isn’t capitalism. It’s a peculiar kind of corporatist socialism, where good risks and the resulting profits remain private, but bad risks and the resulting losses are passed on to taxpayers. There’s nothing free-market about it.”
» Round-up of Free Market Economists on the Bailout
» David Weigel: Bailout Bums
» Hank Paulson’s Countdown to Armageddon
» The Case Against the Bailout
Innovators in Action
Reason Foundation is praising U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and Texas Gov. Rick Perry as “Innovators in Action” for their work in developing fresh solutions to cope with our growing infrastructure and traffic problems. In Innovators in Action 2008, Secretary Peters and Gov. Perry have written columns for Reason explaining their visions and policy prescriptions for the future of transportation funding and construction. Several other public officials, including former U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker, are also featured in Innovators in Action, covering topics ranging from transportation to school choice to privatization.
» Leonard Gilroy: Innovators in Government Offer Cutting-Edge Models for Reform
Watch the Debate with Bob Barr at Reason’s DC Office or Online
Since he wasn’t invited to tonight’s presidential debate, Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr will watch the debate at Reason Foundation’s Washington, D.C. office. Barr will be answering the debate questions and taking questions from the audience afterwards. Reason will be streaming live video of the event and live-blogging Barr’s answers at www.reason.com starting at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. If you are interested in attending, please click here.
McCain Resurrects an Old Stunt
In a column in today’s Los Angeles Times, Reason magazine’s Matt Welch, author of the book McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, writes, “As this week has shown, the act of ‘suspending’ a presidential campaign is a mostly nonsensical idea 40 days before an election. McCain and his subordinates are still all over television, still running advertisements, still holding conference calls with reporters and still collecting donations…McCain is ripping what little facade remains over his campaign. This is not an election about ideas or policy; it’s an election about a Great Man, facing down an interloper…And when a candidate confuses his own political ambitions with the fortunes of his country, that’s when Great Men turn into self- parodies. ‘I have craved distinction in my life,’ McCain wrote in his 2002 political memoir, ‘Worth the Fighting For.’ ‘I have wanted renown and influence for their own sake. That is, of course, the great temptation of public life. … I have never been able to conquer it permanently, but I have tried.’ Don’t say he didn’t warn us.”
» Shikha Dalmia: How Obama Can Win Working-Class Votes
» Jacob Sullum: Revenge of the Bitter Gun Owners
» The Libertarian Case for McCain
» The Libertarian Case for Obama
Reason.com’s First-Ever Webathon
Reason.com Editor Nick Gillespie writes, “If you care about ending the drug war, increasing biomedical freedom, growing the economy, reforming education, opening the world to free trade and globalization, defending the Second Amendment, and heightening the visibility of libertarian ideas in a world stuck between Iraq and a hard place, Democrats and Republicans, and liberals and conservatives, please give what you can.”