Anyone else notice that the FDA Fool and Dunce Administration was not reined in so that low-cost nonprescription remedies could be discussed without fear and REAL low-cost health care could begin? Or fighting waste and fraud with disability claims by requiring cooperation between Medicare-Medicaid-Social Security disability claims and drivers'-license bureaus so that a fraudster who claims a disability severe enough to make driving unsafe really does lose the driver license? These provisions could have been squeezed into the Powerful Politicians Achieving Catastrophe Act, or whatever PPACA stands for, without difficulty if the intent was to reduce cost and reduce waste.

Evidence is abundant; look for it please.See Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (www.thefire.org), Indoctrination U the Movie, and Debt-Free U by Zac Bissonnette. According to Mr Bissonnette, it is possible to work 20 hours a week plus withstand a full college curriculum and get good grades, easily. That leaves 20 hour a week for self-indulgent nonsense. Deeply discounted tuition for work is at Deep Springs College, Alice Lloyd College, Berea College, Blackburn College, Sterling College, Ecclesia College and Warren Wilson College; College of the Ozarks, Alice Lloyd College, and Berea College offer totally free tuition. Graduates come out OK! That's evidence that much time is wasted (how?) at Timewaster U or the equivalent.

SimHealth, not mentioned, has default parameters on how the mayor/manager sets taxes and expenses such that the higher the tax-and-spend government numbers, the better off the economy. (To Maxis' credit, these parameters can be altered by a pro-Austrian-economics user.) In the SimCity versions with which I am familiar, I do not think there is any user access to how the SimCitizens decide to move in or out relative to various economic parameters. We can hope that a pro-Mises model will be included, even if it is not the default. Meanwhile, the higher the taxes the lower the population, all else being equal. State governments, and the US government too, take warning. This part of the simulation is verified accurate by population migrations.

Absolutely right. Today, there is an emphasis on special consideration for the elderly, from Medicare to income-tax exemptions to reduced public-transit fare to subsidized housing. It is politically incorrect to disparage an old person from behaving in a way that in a young adult would be considered rude. Of course this lonely old soul wanted a chance to talk. But her timing was bad. She should have been told, with great respect and politeness, to postpone her chat for a time in which she was not cluttering up a bank-teller line. She has had many years to unlearn bad manners. Meanwhile, she certainly deserved some friendly guidance toward suitable social outlets rather than a rude verbal shove. The teller should have spoken up.

John's lost income is the insurance company's (the one that had paid him for underwriting) gain. Now the insurance company is more profitable, enriching its owners collectively by the value of John's former paycheck. And John is working at Lowe's, productively. Total productivity is up; the market has merely adjusted to a change in the value of John's insurance work. John loses income during the change, about which he is understandably upset. But total productivity and wealth creation goes up. When income goes down in any context, we have to remember that only with fiat money and fakery at the Federal Reserve level can the myth of nondeclining earnings be defended. With honest economic activity, we all must accept the risk that our...