Source: American Thinker.

As with mens rea, the principle that a defendant cannot be compelled to testify against himself is part of the bedrock of our legal system. And for the same reasons, it is essential to responsible debate. The alternative is mob rule.

Source: The American Conservative.

The writer does a nice job revealing the legal concept of mens rea (criminal intent) as it applies to free speech.

Source: American Thinker.

The FBI deserves a guffaw for this incident, but the problem of seeing what we wish to see afflicts all of us.

Source: The Wall Street Journal (behind paywall).

“President Joe Biden is still claiming there’s an economic crisis to justify trillions of dollars in new federal spending. But it’s getting harder to make the case. On Thursday the Commerce Department reported that real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 4% in the fourth quarter of 2020. This follows the historic 33.4% surge in the third quarter and demonstrates a remarkable rebound from the spring shutdowns wherever state governors have been willing to allow it.

Continue reading “The Polite Way to Say Bidenomics Is Unnecessary” →

Source: National Review.

The short answer is: the restaurant raises prices. In effect, customers bear the expense directly.

Continue reading “How McDonald’s Responds to Minimum-Wage Hikes” →

Source: STASH.

Some people — Luddites, usually — lament the effects automation will have on our economy. Their fear is that robotics and AI will replace human jobs, robbing people of income.

My counter argument to these worriers is that wages and salaries are not the only sources of income. They never have been. Ownership of the means of production is also a long-established way to have income without employment.

Continue reading “Moving to an Ownership-based Economy” →

Source: Jacobin.

Media hysteria over the non-events* of Jan. 6 is clearly a pretext for new expansions of federal power at the expense of civil liberties. Even the socialist magazine Jacobin recognizes the danger.

*The Capitol incursion was not an insurrection, it was not sedition; the protesters were not a murderous mob seeking to overthrow the U.S. government, etc.

Source: American Institute for Economic Research.

“At the core of Epstein’s analysis is his identification of conditions under which so-called ‘big tech’ firms might be prevented by the common law from deplatforming, or refusing to platform, customers. Specifically, the law sometimes holds that firms that are monopolists have obligations to the public that are more extensive than those firms would have were they not monopolists.

Continue reading “On Richard Epstein on Regulating “Big Tech”” →

Source: Wikileaks.

“In this extract from his new book, When Google Met Wikileaks, WikiLeaks’ publisher Julian Assange describes the special relationship between Google, Hillary Clinton and the State Department — and what that means for the future of the internet.”

Source: American Institute for Economic Research.

I have long advocated the view that economics is — or can become — a pure science. The Constructal Law which the article describes may represent a small step in that direction. Or, it may be just a rich source of analogies useful in illustrating basic economic principles.

Either way, the Constructal Law is interesting in itself. It would explain, for example, why nature appears to have the attribute of intelligent design.