The worst performances in the recent Washington snowstorm were by the local school systems and the Metro subway — both heavily unionized. Both institutions delayed resumption of full service far beyond what was reasonable, and both failed to perform simple civic duties such as sweeping sidewalks, even in cases where pedestrians were not merely inconvenienced […]

The Chinese “bubble” may or may not burst, but China’s status as an “Asian Tiger” of sustained rapid economic growth seems increasingly perilous. From current indications, I will appall Sinophiles and go so far as to claim that there is some danger of it acquiring parts of the Latin American disease, and turning into that […]

The “Axis of Weasels” of France, Germany and now Belgium, satirically attributed to Donald Rumsfeld by the Web site “Scrappleface,” is an idea whose time may have come. It refocuses one’s perception, and provides an explanation for the alarming non-disappearance of socialism, supposedly dead since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but in […]

The “Axis of Weasels” of France, Germany and now Belgium, satirically attributed to Donald Rumsfeld by the Web site “Scrappleface,” is an idea whose time may have come. It refocuses one’s perception, and provides an explanation for the alarming non-disappearance of socialism, supposedly dead since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but in […]

As detailed in Part 1 of this article, property rights are a fuzzy concept that must be interpreted in light of prevailing circumstances surrounding a particular instance. Intellectual property rights are particularly fuzzy and have changed markedly in their economic effect as technology has advanced.

Property rights are a fuzzy concept, not an absolute. At one extreme, George, first Duke of Sutherland in the early 19th century, depopulated half Scotland to replace tenants with sheep — that is the attitude of the Disney-lobbied copyright bill that extended copyright on Mickey Mouse until 2023. At the other extreme, French philosopher Pierre […]