by L. Carlos Lara [Reprinted from the March 2017 edition of the Lara-Murphy-Report, LMR] Editors’ note: The following article is based on the remarks Carlos Lara made at the February 2017 Infinite Banking Concept (IBC) “Think Tank” in Birmingham, Alabama. Lara’s remarks concerned the vision of The Nelson Nash Institute, … Read more

In 1933, Leonard Read had a conversion experience that was, in a very broad sense, similar to that of St. Paul. Paul experienced his “Damascene conversion” while en route to Damascus, where he intended to persecute recalcitrant Christians. And Read was converted to the ideas of liberty while trying to … Read more

A few years ago, I started watching a TV show called Master Chef Junior. It’s a cooking competition where kids from ages 8-15 compete each week to see who can cook the best dishes for a panel of expert judges. (It’s a spin-off of Master Chef, where adults compete. A … Read more

by Matthew McCaffrey Just over a century ago, in August 1914, the major European nations plunged their peoples into one of the most disastrous conflicts in history. The First World War claimed at least seventeen million lives, destroyed the social and economic fabric of Western Europe, and played a vital … Read more

If we care about freedom, we should reject compulsory schooling. A relic of 19th-century industrial America, compulsory schooling statutes reduced the broad and noble goal of an educated citizenry into a one-size-fits-all system of state-controlled mass schooling that persists today. Horace Mann, the designer of the nation’s first compulsory schooling … Read more

A few weeks ago, Maine Governor Paul LePage signed a Food Sovereignty Bill into law, guaranteeing the rights of Maine towns to regulate food production locally, rather than submitting to federal regulation. Although the press is avoiding describing the bill as such, this is a nullification of federal food regulations. … Read more

Amsterdam’s Tulip Fever has been a curiosity of economists for centuries. “Tulip Fever” the book was a bestseller in 1999. However, the average moviegoer was not curious about “Tulip Fever” the movie as it grossed short of $1.2 million over its opening (Labor Day) weekend, only good enough for the … Read more

To read mainstream economics reporting regularly is to encounter one blood pressure-raising falsehood after another. According to the Wall Street Journal’s Justin Lahart, the savings without which there would be no economic progress are economically harmful. Lahart’s colleague Greg Ip agrees about savings, oddly thinks that copious amounts of what’s essential for … Read more

I have many times heard the following refrains about education: “It’s not about learning any one particular thing. It’s about learning how to learn.” “It’s not about solving any particular problem. It’s about learning how to think.” The speaker often assumes that kids best learn how to learn and how … Read more