Free Republic

Were the Romans close to an Industrial Revolution? (Part 1) | February 25, 2022 | toldinstone

Recently there seem to be an increasing number of claims that American prosperity resulted from slavery. This is presented as justification for the renewed calls for reparations for slavery, which Democrats are using in an attempt to gain support as we approach the next presidential election. But did slavery actually create the wealth of the U.S.? Does this claim have any historical basis in fact, or is this a distortion of history to influence the views of voters? We should all agree that slavery is an immoral institution in which people are treated as property and work, not for themselves,...

The rich heritage of Tunisia, maybe the only place where the Arab Spring stands a chance Modern-day Tunisians, more Westernized than most Arabs, see themselves as descendants of the great Carthaginian general who invaded Italy. The Arab Spring began in Sidi Bouzid, a small Tunisian town, at the end of 2010. In a desperate protest against the corrupt and oppressive government that had made it impossible for him to earn a living, food-cart vendor Mohamed Bouazizi stood before City Hall, doused himself with gasoline, and lit a match. His suicide seeded a revolutionary storm that swept the countryside and eventually...

Can a market-based health care system work? We can begin to answer this question by looking at Lasik, a medical procedure that's not covered by health insurance. And has gotten better—and cheaper—over time. "How to Fix Health Care" proposes three simple reforms that will put us on a path to a health-care system that's better, more affordable, and more accessible. And get this—these market-based reforms can be implemented without creating new government programs or raising taxes.

Wall Street Tumbles On Recovery Woes Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:36pm EDT By Ellis Mnyandu NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks tumbled in a broad sell-off on Wednesday, sending the benchmark S&P 500 lower for a fourth straight day, after weak data on new home sales heightened concerns about the pace of the economic recovery. Financials, technology, materials and industrial sectors, which underpinned the market's advance from March, bore the brunt of the slide as investors reassessed their bets. "The housing data definitely created an additional leg down in the market," said Mike O'Rourke, chief market strategist at institutional brokerage...

Back in the days of the Soviet Union, two Russian economists who had never lived in a country with a free market economy understood something about market economies that many others who have lived in such economies all their lives have never understood. Nikolai Shmelev and Vladimir Popov said: "Everything is interconnected in the world of prices, so that the smallest change in one element is passed along the chain to millions of others." What does that mean? It means that a huge increase in the demand for ice cream can mean higher prices for catchers' mitts, among other things....

Asia continues to look attractive in our annual ranking of tax burden. And even China's bum score may be deceiving. Our 2006 Tax Misery & Reform Index offers a global view of the top marginal rates of taxation--the ones that typically most affect a successful entrepreneur. The news is good as the rates generally continue to decrease around the world. The Misery scores--a sum of six tax rates--are lower in 16 of the locations this year, with France decreasing the most (although still in the top position). There was no change in 28 locations, and only 8 increased Tax Misery...

Many French people say they are anti globalisation, but paradoxically France has launched dozens of world beating brands and grown rich on free trade. A poll recently conducted by an American university sent shock waves through the Finance Ministry in Paris. Researchers found that only just over a third of French people think a free market economy is the best system to develop the country. By way of contrast, the survey found that a majority of citizens in 19 other countries were in favour of the free market, including 65% of Germans, 59 % of Italians, 66% of the British...

Dismantling of the nation-state is not intrinsic to the European Union. Nonetheless, the prime idea behind the EU project is to, once and for all, do away with the traditional orientation towards autarchy and economic self sufficience that once was the name of the game among European countries (and an underlying cause to WW1 and WW2 and many other wars). The EU is a free market project - as opposed to obsolete national Mercantilist and Protectionist strategies. In many ways, The US serves as an impressing prototype for the EU. Europeans ought to look up to the US because it...

The article, from one of the world's leading newspapers, touches on what a blessing saying "hasta la vista" to socialism really can be - not to mention future prospects! Ask the people who live in the hottest city of Europe - and they don't speak "cockney" or french with a Paris accent. The fall of Communism in Russia and China in combination with the orientation towards pro-capitalism of Scandinavia has already lead to a explosion of trade between the world's 14th biggest economy, Russia, the world's 4th biggest economy, China and the 8th biggest one, the Scandinavian countries (Source: IMF...

IN the past month, Australian intellectual life has been made somewhat livelier by a sideshow featuring the ideas of Austrian-born Nobel prize-winning economist and social philosopher Friedrich Hayek. It would not matter much for most people except that those slugging it out are the nation's two political leaders, John Howard and Kevin Rudd. What would Hayek have made of all this? ...Rudd claims that Howard is in thrall to this mysterious Austrian and that government policy is marching along the free-market road Hayek surveyed. ...Two great economists had the better of the argument in the 20th century, the best known...

BEIJING, March 11 — For the first time in perhaps a decade, the National People's Congress, the Communist Party-run legislature now convened in its annual two-week session, is consumed with an ideological debate over socialism and capitalism that many assumed had been buried by China's long streak of fast economic growth. The roots of the current debate can be traced to a biting critique of the property rights law that circulated on the Internet last summer. The critique's author, Gong Xiantian, a professor at Beijing University Law School, accused the legal experts who wrote the draft of "copying capitalist civil...

The European Union will inform Ukraine on Thursday of its intention to grant the country market economy status. At a summit in Kiev, EU leaders will also back Ukraine's membership of the World Trade Organization and discuss plans for a EU-Ukraine free trade area. They will also sign deals on energy co-operation and on the Galileo satellite navigation system. The summit will come a day after the launch of an EU mission to monitor Ukraine's border with Moldova. The summit is the first between the EU and Ukraine since the Orange Revolution a year ago, which brought the pro-Western President...

The conventional wisdom in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is that government failed its citizens. It did. Miserably. So why is the near-universal solution from pundits and officials to propose more government? Will we ever learn? When a plodding, inflexible bureaucracy breaks down on 9/11, what do we do? We react by creating an even less flexible super bureaucracy called the Department of Homeland Security. Judging from the results of Hurricane Katrina, we'd do ourselves a favor by hiring nongovernmental entities such as Wal-Mart and the Red Cross to run homeland security. I realize this concept will be sacrilege to...

It's been 15 years since Germany's reunification, and the once communist east of the country is still in the economic doldrums. But it could be here that the next general election - just a week away - could be decided. The statistics are bleak. Germany's 'Aufbau Ost' - the rebuilding of Eastern Germany - has cost an estimated 1.25 trillion euro (£843bn, $1,550bn) so far. Despite the capital injection, the East's unemployment rate is still 18.6% - in many regions it tops 25%. The economy grows by about 5.5% a year, but from a very low base - and that...

FTA with China not possible: NathJuly 14, 2005 14:49 IST India feels that a free trade agreement with China will not work as it is not a market economy. But India wants its relations with China to shift from the political to the commercial domain and has suggested that both sides should ensure that they are not played against each other by the rest of the world. "For a free trade agreement with China, both countries should have market economies. India will be ready with China for an economic cooperation agreement as China moves to become a market economy," Commerce...

Socialist market economy direction of reforms: Huwww.chinaview.cn 2005-06-30 07:19:25 BEIJING, June 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao said that China will adhere to reforms for a socialist market-oriented economy and continue to deepen reforms in its economic, political, cultural and social management systems, noting that systematic innovation will be further encouraged in China. Hu made the remark in a joint interview from Russia's Itar-Tass News Agency and Channel One TV station here last Tuesday morning prior to his visit to Russia. He said China will remain a developing country for quite a longtime and to achieve the goal of...

Letter from a recent NK visitor by Rebecca MacKinnon @ 07:28 PM in Economic policy, Engagement After chatting up the waitresses at Shinuiju Hotel over dinner they eagerly agreed to allow us to take our pictures with them. About 6 waitresses and 4 foreigners - we snuggled tightly (they were the more aggressive) and said "cheese" together - with the girl on my left grabbing my arm together to make "peace" signs for the camera. In response to the recent discussion about the nature & extent of recent changes in North Korea, Shanghai-based Canadian businessman Randal Eastman has sent an...

/begin my translationA Powerful Force of Change Unleashed in N. Korea N. Korea is such a changed country now. It is not the same country I had left two years ago. They say, "Rivers and mountains change after 10 years." However, N. Korea is changing so much in just a year. While the country remains the same, people have been changing dramatically. Seen across Tumen and Yalu River, N. Korean landscape has hardly changed. Crumbling apartments and houses, no cars in the streets except some ox carts making noise while passing. Every hill is denuded to the last tree, making...

Rumsfeld Condemns 'Evil Dictatorship' WASHINGTON - The U.S. defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said this week that North Korea's famine and suffering were due to its "evil dictatorship." “The solution is for North Korea to acknowledge that a market economy, not totalitarianism or despotism, is the system that creates the most for the people,” he said. Rumsfeld was at the Hudson Research Institute in Washington, receiving the James Doolittle prize for exhibiting courage in the defense of the nation's freedoms. The German doctor and activist for North Korean rights and refugees Norbert Vollertsen was in attendance, and asked Rumsfeld, “North Korean...