BankNotes Archive – May 2018

by Kerry McDonald Do you remember sentence-diagramming in school? I do. It was the onerous process of breaking apart individual sentences into their component parts and identifying those parts, like the subject, the verb, the modifiers, and so on. By the time sentence-diagramming was introduced in elementary school, I had … Read more

by Isaac M. Morehouse Imagine a town. Maybe an early New England village. There is a dominant belief in this town that one must attend church every Sunday if they want to live a prosperous life. Because the belief is pervasive, those who want to be prosperous attend in high numbers. … Read more

by Barry Brownstein Imagine being born during the bloody Cultural Revolution in China and growing up in a country with little economic or personal freedom. Few Chinese citizens had the knowledge that human rights are not granted by government, and those few who knew could not say. Few knew that … Read more

by Bryan Caplan During my day with Eric Hanushek, he repeatedly asked me, “If rising worker productivity doesn’t come from education, where does it come from?” Good question. In the pre-modern world, workers got little education and had low productivity. In the modern world, workers get much education and have high productivity. Productivity (and … Read more

by Robert Higgs Senator Hiram Johnson is credited with having said during World War I, “The first casualty, when war comes, is truth,” and this observation has been made in more or less the same words many times, both before and since Johnson made his statement. No doubt the declaration is true, but it … Read more

by Barry Brownstein “Our ignorance is sobering and boundless,” philosopher Karl Popper famously observed. Popper continued with what could be a credo for humble individuals willing to admit the limits of individual knowledge: “With each step forward, with each problem which we solve, we not only discover new and unsolved problems, but … Read more

by Nicholas Elliott, Lawrence W. Reed Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like. — Francois de la Rochefoucauld (1613-1680). Heroes for liberty are not particular to any region of the world or to a particular time period or to one sex. They hail … Read more

By R. Nelson Nash The month of April has come to a close — the month that Americans have a deadline to file their income tax report — or get an extension to file at a later date. What a vast subject we have to ponder and ruminate about! How … Read more

By Bob Murphy May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13, NIV) We are engaged in a great struggle for liberty. There are forces at … Read more