Category Archives: Emerging Events

by | November 23, 2012 · 2:42 pm

Capitalism as Epic Rap Battle

Who would win in a rap battle, Adolf Hitler or Darth Vader? Maybe that question hasn’t exactly been gnawing at you, but in the cutthroat emerging market of Internet entertainment, writers, actors, and producers innovate tirelessly to get your attention.

One of the strangest commercial successes to rise from this crucible is the Epic Rap Battles of History, a YouTube musical-comedy series that now has more than 1.8 million subscribers. That’s a block of loyal fans that most TV stations would kill for.

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by | August 17, 2012 · 11:09 am

Respect Indigenous Property Rights

Environmentalists and mining companies are fighting over the fate of the remote Klappan Valley in northern British Columbia. The different sides struggle for government approval of their particular plans, but almost no one fully acknowledges the property rights of the first owners of the valley, the indigenous Tahltan people.

The Tahltan have lived in and around the Klappan Valley since before there were any states at all in North America. They defended this rich territory against rival tribes, as Tahltan leaders put it, “from time immemorial, at the cost of our own blood,” long before European contact.[1] They defended it against the mercantilist Hudson’s Bay Company in the 1800s. And now they are defending it against the corporate cronies of the central government.

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by | July 30, 2012 · 3:46 pm

In Praise of Government Gridlock

In California, a law that promised to control politicians is now being used to control the public.

California’s Proposition 25 promised to rein in runaway spending and "end budget gridlock" by hitting politicians’ pocketbooks. Every day on which lawmakers failed to pass a balanced budget after their June 15 deadline each year would be a day of pay they lost.

This was an attempt to increase government "efficiency" — to make government conform to the laws of business: you must give people the things they want on time or you do not get paid. But, as Mises wrote, "government efficiency and industrial efficiency are entirely different things."

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by | July 2, 2012 · 2:21 pm

Capitalist Contortions: How Amazon Survives the State

Here’s a snapshot from the American landscape of convoluted crony capitalism: starting this September, if a man in Los Angeles buys a book from Amazon.com, the local sales tax he pays could go to the city of San Bernardino, which will then give 80 percent of the tax money back to Amazon itself.

Such roundabout arrangements of redistributive robbery are in fact an unavoidable consequence of the doctrine Mises called "interventionism." Nowadays, it is more often called "economic development," but it still means the same thing: government manipulations with the stated goal of improving on the free market.

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by | June 18, 2012 · 4:02 pm

California City Gets Amazon.com Sales Tax — and Gives It to Amazon.com

Amazon.com Inc. is planning to partner with at least one California city to collect sales taxes from the entire state. Most of the collected tax money would go back to Amazon.

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by | May 14, 2012 · 4:56 pm

The Future of High-IQ Education

This article was originally published on Whiskey & Gunpowder.

Mensa logo

Wonderful developments in education are on the horizon.

Mensa, the international association for people much smarter than I am, has just accepted its newest member: a toddler with an IQ of 154. Calgary’s Anthony Popa Urria is now almost three years old. Before he was one, he could sound out the English alphabet. He can now speak English, Spanish, and some Romanian, and he enjoys afternoons spent studying his giant atlas.
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by | April 27, 2012 · 11:24 am

The Entitlement Vultures

Daniel’s article “The Entitlement Mentality in Academia” analyzes the outrage of certain professors at cuts to their departments in 2010, despite the obviously strained economic circumstances of their universities. This mentality does not stop at faculty: on Wednesday night in Montreal, the two-month-long student protests over rising tuition turned violent once again.
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by | April 24, 2012 · 9:38 am

Wildrose Wilts in Albertan Election

Wildrose leader Danielle Smith

Yesterday, Alberta’s ruling party managed to fend off an electoral insurrection by the new, fiscally conservative and quasi-libertarian Wildrose Party. Wildrose, formed only in 2008, was the first serious challenge in a long time for the Progressive Conservative Party, who have held Alberta’s government for more than 40 years.
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by | April 20, 2012 · 12:41 pm

Imprisoning the Jarawa Tribe

Pop quiz: What do you call forcible imprisonment in impoverished conditions? Well, if the person you’re imprisoning has dark skin and a culture older than yours, you get to call it “protection” on a “reserve.”
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by | April 11, 2012 · 1:51 pm

How Many Grad Students Do We Need?

The recent fad of text-to-speech videos has placed its crosshairs on the unfortunate case of many young Americans who — facing a much higher unemployment rate than the nation as a whole — have turned to graduate school in record numbers. They typically do so to improve their job prospects, fulfill their intellectual fantasies, or simply escape the harsh reality of a depressed economy for another few years. It is clear that this trend cannot end happily for a large number of these students.

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