Richard Rahn: The High Cost of Slander

Endless cruelties have been and continue to be committed on the basis of group slander. The communists and socialists imprisoned and slaughtered many of their merchant and property-owning citizens on the basis of a gross slander, not to mention what the Nazis did to the Jews. In America, blacks, gays, many ethnic groups and women were first stereotyped, then slandered, and then discriminated against. 

But the fashion of which groups of individuals can be slandered has changed to such people as Wall Street bankers; pharmaceutical, coal and oil company executives; conservative scholars; those who question the global warming establishment; and white males, among others.

Richard Rahn from the Cato Institute: Tracing Pathways to Success and Failure

Why is Hong Kong rich, Cuba very poor, and Puerto Rico struggling? Back in 1955, the islands of Puerto Rico, Cuba and Hong Kong had roughly the same real per capita income. They each took very different economic paths. 

Now, some 60 years later, Hong Kong is even richer than the United States on a per capita income basis. Cuba is an economic disaster, having gone from the richest Caribbean nation to the poorest, next to Haiti. And Puerto Rico finds itself flirting with bankruptcy, with a per capita income much higher than Cuba’s but only roughly half that of Hong Kong. Incomes have increased approximately 22-fold in Hong Kong, 11-fold in Puerto Rico, and only fourfold at best in Cuba, in a little over a half-century.

Richard Rahn: Using Tax Money to Raise Taxes

If a member of Congress told you that he was going to use some of your hard-earned tax dollars to support an international organization that demands that you pay higher taxes, what would you say? 

Unfortunately, the question is not hypothetical, because that is exactly what is now happening. Congress is giving more than $70 million a year to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which has morphed over the last two decades from an organization that promoted trade and growth policies to an organization that pushes for higher taxes, which will reduce economic growth.

Richard Rahn from Cato: A Bounty of Good News

Your Thanksgiving dinner is going to be less expensive. This year the average person will need to work 2 hours, 21 minutes and 57 seconds to pay for all the items in a standard Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people — a work reduction of one minute and 8 seconds from last year. 

Back in 1986, the average person needed to work 3 hours, 12 minutes and 27 seconds to pay for the same dinner, or 50 minutes and 30 seconds longer than a worker today. This is the great beauty of the capitalistic system — in real terms, as measured by the time necessary to work to buy most anything, the price falls year after year.

Richard Rahn from the Cato Institute: Squandering Economic Freedom

There was good news for Argentina last week. It was expected that Daniel Scioli, the Peronist candidate and political heir of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, would win the presidential election. Much to most people’s surprise, Maurico Macri, the more free-market-oriented mayor of Buenos Aires, won almost as many votes as Mr. Scioli, forcing a runoff, which Mr. Macri has a good chance to win.

The Peronists (named after former dictator Juan Peron) have had political control much of the last 70 years, and it has been a disaster for the country.

Richard Rahn from the Cato Institute: Hillarynomics

If Hillary Clinton were to be elected president, what economic policies would she propose and what would be the effect on the economy? To try to get an answer, I have looked at her statements, her campaign website, and her Senate record.

Mrs. Clinton has recognized the major economic problem of slow growth and stagnant incomes, and her economic platform is called, “A plan to raise American incomes.”

Richard Rahn from the Cato institute: A Nation Worth Emulating

Zurich, Switzerland — When you think of Switzerland what comes to mind? Beautiful lakes surrounded by the Alps; a rich country with happy people; the home of milk chocolate, expensive watches and discrete bankers; a peaceful country that has not been at war in more than two centuries?

All that is true, and even more. Switzerland is at or near the top of almost every measure of a successful country, including the just released Human Freedom Index complied by the Cato and Fraser Institutes, and others.

Richard Rahn from the Cato Institute: Promoting Very Unsettled Science

If you have been to the beach at Treasure Island, Florida (adjoining St. Petersburg), you will notice something very odd. The hotels (many of which were built in the 1950s and ‘60s) and the seawall are very far from the water in the Gulf of Mexico — giving an extraordinarily wide beach. It was not always that way. 

When the hotels and seawall were built, they were set back from the high tide a normal hundred yards or so; but over the years, there was a natural but unforeseen accretion to the beach — which, having grown up in the area, I observed. (It can be seen on Google Earth.)