“Milton Friedman” on The Daily Caller

In this classic video, legendary economist Milton Friedman explains the magic of the free market through the example of a simple pencil: (more)

President Obama’s class-warfare assault on successful businessmen and investors appears to have spurred members of Congress to launch an assault on Google because it has been too successful. Depressingly, however, these attacks are not limited to Democrats, but include among their ranks so-called conservative Republicans. (more)

Q: What do South Korea, Finland, Hong Kong and Singapore all have in common? (more)

“I got along with him fine. But Ben Bernanke thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, and wanted everyone to know it,” remarked an acquaintance who used to sit in policy meetings with him. I recalled the remark when I read that Bernanke would become the first Federal Reserve Chairman to hold press conferences after meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). What if the smartest guy in the room doesn’t get it? (more)

There’s been a push for decades to constitutionally require Congress to balance federal spending with revenue. And a current incarnation of this push would cap spending at 18 percent of GDP, which all 47 Republicans in the U.S. Senate have signed off on. But how far will the GOP take it? (more)

In 1993, Sweden introduced a system of school choice and vouchers, inspired by the ideas of American economists Milton and Rose Friedman. Even though the system was just as controversial then as any U.S. voucher proposal, the right to chose your school and bring the funding with you is today considered a natural right for families and is widely accepted by all political parties. (more)

In Monday’s New York Times, David Brooks criticizes the politics surrounding the ongoing debate about the size and focus of government. (more)

Finally, President Obama said something I can agree with: that Americans do have differences of opinion, that not everyone agrees with him and the Democrats, and that compromise is part of our political system. So in the interest of compromise and deficit reduction, I note that conservatives can certainly throw some new tax proposals on the table in order to throw some Americans under the bus who richly deserve it. Normally we cringe when the usual assortment of “progressive” senators bitch and moan about why the “rich” aren’t paying taxes at a higher marginal rate. We instead favor a flatter tax code and don’t wish to punish success. However, we are willing to make an exception. (more)

One of the provisions that is set to expire in January if Congress doesn’t extend the Bush tax cuts is a tax break that helps children attend the school of their choice. Known as the Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, this education IRA was incorporated into the sweeping Bush tax cut plan a decade ago. It expanded a college-only savings program to allow parents to also save for K-12 education expenses tax-free, including private school tuition. (more)

“Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with.” (more)

Friday, Michael Gerson became the latest former Bush operative to escalate the post-election war on the Tea Party and Sarah Palin when he published a Washington Post column entitled “The GOP’s Sarah Palin Problem.”  In his column, Gerson mangles the facts terribly, even blaming Palin and Senator Jim DeMint for Sharron Angle’s ill-fated nomination in spite of the fact that neither endorsed Angle until after she won the nomination.  Doug Brady dismantled the rest of Gerson’s specious argument at Conservatives4Palin.  But most ironic was his closing statement that “the leading figure of the Tea Party movement seems increasingly indifferent to Republican fortunes and increasingly tolerant of disturbing extremism.” (more)

On the eve of the midterm elections, a third-quarter GDP report showing a meager 2 percent growth rate is the final nail in the Obama Democrats’ political coffin. (more)

This year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics went to Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen, and Christopher Pissarides for their work on “search theory,” especially as applied to labor markets. The irony is that their award-winning work provides peer-reviewed justification for a commonsense solution to high unemployment. Continuous extensions of unemployment benefits have the paradoxical effect of paying people not to find work. (more)

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” — Adam Smith (more)

The essence of the superior man is that he is free of … envy. Conscious of his capacity to survive and prosper within his own field, he has no desire to change places with anyone else, and hence he is incapable of envying anyone else. Thus he is inevitably a bad democrat, for democracy is a practical matter is based mainly and perhaps almost wholly on envy. — H. L. Mencken (more)

Would John Maynard Keynes himself even agree with the perpetual deficit-spending that has been going on for the past 40 years in America? (more)

Eighteen months after it was born on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange during an impassioned call to arms by CNBC’s Rick Santelli — and three months prior to its first widespread test at the ballot box — the Tea Party Movement has become the most salient grassroots uprising in America. Yet for all its influence, the most noteworthy fact about the congealing constitutionalist movement may be that even many of its supporters are unsure of its true purpose. Is it a conservative insurrection? The beginnings of a third party?  Or simply a check on the GOP’s flirtations with “big government conservatism”? (more)

Martin Luther tacked 95 theses to a wooden door. Our Founding Fathers wrote a list of grievances to King George. (more)

William F. Buckley Jr.: The Maker of a Movement (more)

President Obama has appointed three new doves to the Federal Reserve Board, thereby taking command of the nation’s central bank. But there’s a split developing inside the Federal Reserve System: The Reserve Bank presidents, appointed by their own district boards of directors, are increasingly likely to wage a battle royale against the central-bank headquarters in Washington and its free-money, ultra-easy policies. (more)