The science fiction pioneer H.G. Wells once observed that “human history is, in essence, a history of ideas.” This is a wise observation — and it speaks to the political debates we’ve been having here in North Carolina. Wells himself was an influential purveyor of ideas. Some were praiseworthy, such as his exploration of the...
Editor’s note: This piece originally published in The American Spectator and is reprinted below in its entirety. Walt Disney established the Disney Company in 1923 for the sole purpose of entertaining children with fun-loving characters. It is one of the most iconic companies in the world, loved by most families. Disney’s theme parks are an...
Satirist and author P.J. O’Rourke discusses his book “On The Wealth Of Nations” during a Nov. 16, 2007, interview with Carolina Journal. O’Rourke died Tuesday from complications of lung cancer.
If you want to encourage donations to charity, don’t just talk about benefits to recipients. Talk about the benefits the donor will feel from aiding your cause.
When conservatives advocate smaller government, they do it not because they are “pro-business” but because they are pro-progress.
“If you look at the U.S. current account balance … we are ceding about $450 billion of our wealth to mostly Southeast Asia and a little bit to Mexico,” Kyle Bass, Founder of Hayman Capital Management, told the Fox Business Channel. If you are looking for evidence to support the fact that just because you’re successful...
I have found the recent demonization of Facebook and its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg fascinating and revelatory. We have discovered that during the 2016 presidential campaign the social media giant played unwitting host to hundreds of Russian bots and fake accounts peddling misinformation about the candidates. It has also attracted bad publicity for allowing third parties to...
Typically, “saving American jobs” is the reason given for implementing protectionist trade measures, i.e., tariffs and quotas. The argument goes something like this: Foreign producers of a product are offering American consumers a more attractive price or better-quality product than they can get from American producers of the same product. This can occur for any...
Levying tariffs to jack up steel prices will hurt other manufacturing firms, which employ vastly more North Carolinians (and other Americans) than the steel companies do.
Donald Trump is the sun of the contemporary American political system. Its institutions, such as Congress, the parties, the media, the states, think tanks, popular culture all revolve around him as if planets. On a recent visit to the United Kingdom, I discovered his gravitational pull extends far beyond our shores. The president structures politics in Britain today in...
One of the most common misconceptions about the free market is that it encourages people to pursue their own “narrow self-interest,” usually interpreted as caring only about one’s self while ignoring the needs and desires of others. But in fact, the truth is quite the opposite. In a market, the surest route to economic failure...
