Local Columnists
Why We're Asking the Wrong Question About the Industrial Policy Push
- By Veronique de Rugy
Proponents of the ongoing push for national industrial policy, whether they come from the left or the right, frequently argue that we need to promote certain sectors or technologies to create a manufacturing boom. This boom, we're told, is necessary to create more high-paying jobs. But I beg to differ. Industrial policy isn't and shouldn't be primarily about creating jobs. Its primary purpose, if it should exist at all, lies elsewhere.
The ultimate objective of an economy is not to provide jobs per se, but to improve overall living standards. This happens with an ever-increasing availability of quality goods and services that people voluntarily purchase to enrich their lives. Good jobs are a means to this end; they are not the end itself. This reality is easily proven by asking someone who loves his job if he'd continue to do it if it paid nothing. Virtually everyone's honest answer would be no.
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Flaws in Naturalistic Planetary Formation Theory
- By Charles Creager, Jr.
You hear planet formation theory talked about as if it were proven fact immediately observable. The most they have are some pictures of stars that have clouds of dust around them with planets in them. So, they have detected dust around some stars are also have planets orbiting them and they call this confirmation of planet formation theory. However, this theory has many problems including the fact that planets are not always found where they are supposed to be.
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Why NATO Was Obsessed With Ukraine And Is Now In A Panic
- By Larry Johnson
To answer the question in my title you need only look at two numbers — 1) Ukraine’s rank in terms of natural resources and 2) the size of Ukraine’s Army in February 2022. Since the end of World War II the West has viewed Ukraine as a critical piece on the global chess board for attacking and defeating Russia. The joint CIA/MI-6 effort to destabilize the Soviet Union, which started in 1947 with the provision of funds, weapons and training to Stefan Bandera’s organization, was crushed by the Soviets by 1952. It was shortly after that, following the death of Stalin in 1953, that Khrushchev gifted Crimea to Ukraine (1954). Was it a reward for Ukrainian assistance in wiping out the CIA-backed OUN uprising?
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Disney Still Reeling from Blowback
- By Bill Donohue - President, Catholic League
Bob Iger has been hanging around Disney seemingly forever, and every time he quits, he re-retires (he's done so at least three times).
When he left as CEO in 2021, he managed to become executive chairman, keeping an eye on his successor, Bob Chapek. Last November, Chapek was shown the door, and Iger jumped back in the saddle as CEO again. He was supposed to retire at the end of 2024, but now that date has been extended to December 31, 2026. He definitely has a grip on the Disney board.
In 2021, Iger's total compensation was $46 million, more than double what he earned the previous year. His new contract includes an annual bonus equal to 500 percent of his annual salary. Disney chairman Mark Parker says he's worth every penny of it. But is he?
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Progressives and Populists vs. the Credit Card Market
- By Veronique de Rugy
Central planning, never out of fashion on the left, is now more popular than ever on the right thanks to the GOP's populist takeover. This is why a recurring effort to intervene in the credit-card processing market is finding more support in the new Congress than it did in the previous one.
Interchange fees are charged by payment networks, such as Visa or Mastercard, whenever you use a credit card. Collected fees go to both the credit-card processing service and the card issuer. Card issuers must maintain and improve payment networks, protect data, combat fraud and bear the risk of debtor default. Fees help cover all of this.
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Slavery in Fact and Fiction
- By Mike Scruggs
A Historical Perspective on American Slavery
Slavery is one of those subjects of American history that is highly charged emotionally and wrapped in the sensitivities of both historical and modern political agendas. Any discussion of slavery is unfortunately very much bound by the chains of modern political correctness and woke cancel-culture. This severely hinders a historically accurate and realistic perspective on American slavery. Unvarnished and uninhibited truth on this important aspect of American history is sorely needed.
The image of American slavery in the minds of most people today is one of chains, bullwhips, cruelty, and arrogant human abuse. This was often true of the transportation of slaves associated with the slave trade but was largely untrue of the practice of slavery on American shores. The actual practice of slavery in America was in the vast majority of cases considerably more benign than its modern image. There were, of course, many inherent flaws in slavery as a social and economic system that limited social and economic justice and opportunity. Some inexcusable human abuses did occur under American slavery and should not be condoned, but such abuses were far less common than generally assumed. Even Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, based principally on accounts of runaway slaves, Southern newspaper records of slave masters prosecuted by Southern state governments, and only very limited firsthand familiarity with the South, gives a more balanced picture of slavery than the common modern image.
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Is “Abandonment Theology” Really Scriptural?
- By W.H. Lamb
“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”
So said the 6th President of the U.S., John Quincy Adams, on July 4, 1821. I’ve read that quote often in the past, and I’ve always believed it to be both insightful and truthful. I’ve long assumed that most Americans of the “experienced” variety (i.e. those who are as ‘old as rocks’, like me) always endorsed the accuracy of Adams’ statement. I’m not quite as confidant that our younger fellow citizens subscribe to that sentiment, or have even heard of President John Quincy Adams, and lately I’m increasingly concerned that Americans of all ages no longer value the wisdom of our “elders” and our Founders. Let me share some of my concerns with you.
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