Dec 23, 2008 – With both Barack Obama's supporters and the media looking forward to the new administration's policies being similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies during the 1930s depression, it may be useful to look at just what those policies were and-- more important-- what their consequences were. The prevailing view in...

Dec 17, 2008 – Some of us were raised to believe that reality is inescapable. But that just shows how far behind the times we are. Today, reality is optional. At the very least, it can be postponed. Kids in school are not learning? Not a problem. Just promote them on to the next...

Dec 16, 2008 – Good books are especially good to give as gifts to the proverbial "man who has everything" because he (or she) may not have heard of a new book that fits their interests. Good new books are one of the few good things about this past year. Here are some books...

Jan 2, 2009 – McDonald's are going up, shows that people are adjusting to economic adversity by cutting back their spending,” columnist and economist Thomas … Sowell wrote recently.…

Dec 31, 2008 – Whoever called politics "the art of the possible" must have had a strange idea of what is possible or a strange idea of politics, where the impossible is one of the biggest vote-getters. People can get the possible on their own. Politicians have to be able to offer the voters...

Dec 30, 2008 – "Outliers" are not politicians who lie even more than other politicians. It is a term used by statisticians to describe some data that are far away from the average-- data on seven-foot women or freezing temperatures in Los Angeles, for example. "Outliers" is also the title of a very insightful...

Dec 29, 2008 – ." -- Thomas Sowell Economist, author and columnist (Jan. 26) "What we have to recognize is that in 1995, the homeownership rate…

May 17, 2011 – We could definitely use another Abraham Lincoln to emancipate us all from being slaves to words. In the midst of a historic financial crisis of unprecedented government spending, and a national debt that outstrips even the debt accumulated by the reckless government spending of previous administration, we are still enthralled...

May 26, 2011 – What about Thomas Sowell? … It is the clear-headed part that made Sowell double over in laughter when he was asked about running for office. … Former left-wing David Mamet partially credits Sowell with turning him from being "a brain-dead liberal."…

May 24, 2011 – Those who regard government "entitlement" programs as sacrosanct, and regard those who want to cut them back as calloused or cruel, picture a world very different from the world of reality.To listen to some of the defenders of entitlement programs, which are at the heart of the present financial crisis,...

Jun 7, 2011 – Two unrelated news stories on the same day show the contrast between government decisions and private decisions.Under the headline "Foreclosed Homes Sell at Big Discounts," USA Today reported that banks were selling the homes they foreclosed on, at discounts of 38 percent in Tennessee to 41 percent in Illinois and...

Jun 1, 2011 – The only thing surprising about Barack Obama's latest blow against Israel is that there are people who are surprised. As for a Palestinian homeland, that was never a big issue when the Arabs controlled that land, up to 1967. Obama's declaration that Israel must give up the land it acquired,...

May 31, 2011 – One of the painfully revealing episodes in Barack Obama's book "Dreams From My Father" describes his early experience listening to a sermon by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Among the things said in that sermon was that "white folks' greed runs a world in need." Obama was literally moved to tears...

Apr 5, 2011 – When someone gives you a check and the bank informs you that there are insufficient funds, who do you get mad at? In your own life, you get mad at the guy who gave you a check that bounced, not at the bank. But, in politics, you get mad at...

Apr 19, 2011 – There is a lot of talk from many people about bullying in school. The problem is that it is all talk. There is no sign that anybody is going to do anything that is likely to reduce bullying.When politicians want to do nothing, and yet look like they are doing...

Apr 13, 2011 – Someone once said that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. That may have been true when he said it, but today taxes are mostly the price we pay so that politicians can play Santa Claus and get reelected. That's not the worst of it. We may think of...

Apr 12, 2011 – As Thomas Sowell has noted, "As of 1998, a $100 bill would not buy as much as a $20 bill would buy in the 1960's."…

Apr 12, 2011 – Since everybody else seems to be coming up with plans on how to cope with the skyrocketing national debt, let me try my hand at it too.The liberals' easy solution is just to increase taxes on "the rich." But, if you do the math, there aren't enough of "the rich"...

Apr 27, 2011 – Walter Williams fans are in for a treat-- and people who are not Walter Williams fans are in for a shock-- when they read his latest book, "Race and Economics."It is a demolition derby on paper, as Professor Williams destroys one after another of the popular fallacies about the role...

Apr 26, 2011 – The boomlet for Donald Trump as a Republican nominee for President of the United States ought to be a wake-up call for Republican candidates and Republican Party leaders alike.Why has Trump surged ahead of other Republican candidates and potential candidates in the polls? It is not likely that his resurrection...

Apr 26, 2011 – If you want something more concrete than that, here's Thomas Sowell giving a real world example of how Affirmative Action leads to…

Nov 5, 2015 – Banfield, along with two distinguished black scholars, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, has written that since the late 1880s, despite … Sowell writes that, "the cold fact is that the poverty rate among blacks fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent by 1960.…

Nov 4, 2015 – In Thomas Sowell's book "The Vision of the Anointed" (which should have been titled "(SET ITAL) Conceit (END ITAL) of the (SET ITAL … ) Self (END ITAL)-Anointed", Sowell points out that politicians use "the word 'ask' -- as in 'We are just asking everyone to pay their…

Nov 3, 2015 – A recent, widely publicized incident in which a policeman was called to a school classroom to deal with a disruptive student has provoked all sorts of comments on whether the policeman used "excessive force." What has received far less attention, though it is a far larger question,...

Mar 30, 2011 – You don't just walk up to the local bully and slap him across the face. If you are determined to confront him, then you try to knock the living daylights out of him. Otherwise, you are better off to leave him alone.Anyone who grew up in my old neighborhood in...