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RECOMMENDED WEBSITES IDEAS ON LIBERTY SPEECHES MISC
Updated: July 29, 2010
On this page you will find a wide variety of topics ranging from opportunities to learn more about liberty and economics.
Essays on Liberty and Economics
Supply-Side Economics: Myths and Realities
The Entrepreneur as American Hero
Washington Could Use Less Keynes and More Hayek (NEW!)
Yertle the Turtle (to help children understand the value of liberty)
How a Capitalist Won World War II
The Supreme Court and our Founders
Freedom Fest
Every year the Young America's Foundation holds Freedom Fest - a three day series devoted to speeches and debates on liberty, the role of government in the economy and principles of individualism. Young America's Foundation has cast as its primary mission the promotion of the philosophy espoused by President Ronald Reagan. In 2004 ABC's John Stossel (seen here to my immediate left) and I were invited to speek at Freedom Fest. To order a copy of his speech entitled, "Enemies of Liberty" log onto YAF.org. To hear my speech on "The Curse of Alexander Hamilton" enter the SPEECHES section.
On May 13, 2005 I delivered a speech at Freedom Fest entitled, "Is Socialism America's Destiny?" CD's of the speech are available from the YAF website.
Liberty and Economics in the Movies (the links below do not provide the entire movie, just clips or general information)
Miracle - Students of economics and liberty will love the underlying theme of dynamic capitalism triumphing over statist communism.
John Adams - an HBO miniseries with classic Libertarian dialogue
A Beautiful Mind - A movie about an economist and a strange new look at Adam Smith.
The Pursuit of Happyness - A look at the difference between rights and interests
Braveheart - Perhaps the greatest movie on human liberty ever made.
Flash of Genius - Why private property rights are important...
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rands' book as a movie.
Food, Inc. - An interesting look at the economics of the food industry
Cinderella Man - Not only does this movie illustrate how the welfare state was not openly embraced by Americans in the 1930s, but there is a terrific scene where the boxer's manager and a fight promoter illustrate the power of Adam Smith's views of the self-interested man.
The Shawshank Redemption - One of the greatest movies ever on the subject of individual liberty and morality.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - Students of Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution will love this movie.
The Perfect Storm - Good or bad capitalism? Rational or irrational behavior?
Born Free - A wonderful movie to teach kids the difference between liberty and security
The Patriot - Mel Gibson's quote about tyrants early in the movie is a classic.
The Alamo - There is also a nice application of game theory in one scene for those of you who enjoy that subject. Hint: A violin is involved...
Open Range - An interesting look at the definition of property.
Saving Private Ryan - A terrific examination of resource use, opportunity cost and cost-benefit analysis.
Syriana - A disturbing, and relatively realistic look at the oil business - with a reference to Milton Friedman included!
You've Got Mail - For a look at the 'conventional wisdom' (i.e. wrong way of thinking) on the issue of predatory pricing.
The Rookie - This movie is one long exercise in the concept of opportunity cost.
Hoffa - For an interesting look at the labor union movement.
Wall Street - Another anti-Capitalism movie. The zero-sum game scene is typical of what Hollywood doesn't understand about markets.
'V' for Vendetta - The future?
When is TAX FREEDOM DAY in your state?
The average American worked until April 23rd of this year just to pay off the government. Depending on the state you live in, you might be a serf a little longer. I hope the news is good for you.
Do you live in an economically free state?
For many Americans, liberty is jeopardy because of the state they live in. Tax rates, regulations on businesses, eminent domain abuse and other factors contribute to economic liberty - or the lack thereof. To find out if you live in a state where freedom is respected, click here. Good luck!
The Economics of Education - Does school choice improve test scores? Is home-school a viable option? Click on the appropriate links to find out. Speaking of education, you must take a look at a brand new childrens book entitled, "Why Mommy is a Democrat". It speaks volumes about what kids are getting in our government schools. Try not to cry.
2010 Global Rankings of Economic Freedom - Where to live if you want liberty...
To learn more about what these rankings mean visit the Heritage Foundation website.
Ranking the Countries
Index of Economic Freedom World Rankings (Click on the country name for more details.)
World Rank Country Freedom Score Change from Previous
1 Hong Kong 89.7 -0.3 62 Portugal 64.4 -0.5 123 Côte d'Ivoire 54.1 -0.9 2 Singapore 86.1 -1.0 63 Romania 64.2 +1.0 124 India 53.8 -0.6 3 Australia 82.6 0.0 64 France 64.2 +0.9 125 Moldova 53.7 -1.2 4 New Zealand 82.1 +0.1 65 Saudi Arabia 64.1 -0.2 126 Papua New Guinea 53.5 -1.3 5 Ireland 81.3 -0.9 66 Thailand 64.1 +1.1 127 Tonga 53.4 -0.7 6 Switzerland 81.1 +1.7 67 Turkey 63.8 +2.2 128 Tajikistan 53.0 -1.6 7 Canada 80.4 -0.1 68 Montenegro 63.6 +5.4 129 Niger 52.9 -0.9 8 United States 78.0 -2.7 69 Madagascar 63.2 +1.0 130 Nepal 52.7 -0.5 9 Denmark 77.9 -1.7 70 Dominica 63.2 +0.6 131 Suriname 52.5 -1.6 10 Chile 77.2 -1.1 71 Poland 63.2 +2.9 132 Cameroon 52.3 -0.7 11 United Kingdom 76.5 -2.5 72 South Africa 62.8 -1.0 133 Mauritania 52.0 -1.9 12 Mauritius 76.3 +2.0 73 Greece 62.7 +1.9 134 Guinea 51.8 +0.8 13 Bahrain 76.3 +1.5 74 Italy 62.7 +1.3 135 Argentina 51.2 -1.1 14 Luxembourg 75.4 +0.2 75 Bulgaria 62.3 -2.3 136 Ethiopia 51.2 -1.8 15 The Netherlands 75.0 -2.0 76 Uganda 62.2 -1.3 137 Bangladesh 51.1 +3.6 16 Estonia 74.7 -1.7 77 Namibia 62.2 -0.2 138 Laos 51.1 +0.7 17 Finland 73.8 -0.7 78 Cape Verde 61.8 +0.5 139 Djibouti 51.0 -0.3 18 Iceland 73.7 -2.2 79 Belize 61.5 -1.5 140 China 51.0 -2.2 19 Japan 72.9 +0.1 80 Kyrgyz Republic 61.3 -0.5 141 Haiti 50.8 +0.3 20 Macau 72.5 +0.5 81 Paraguay 61.3 +0.3 142 Micronesia 50.6 -1.1 21 Sweden 72.4 +1.9 82 Kazakhstan 61.0 +0.9 143 Russia 50.3 -0.5 22 Austria 71.6 +0.4 83 Guatemala 61.0 +1.6 144 Vietnam 49.8 -1.2 23 Germany 71.1 +0.6 84 Samoa 60.4 +0.9 145 Syria 49.4 -1.9 24 Cyprus 70.9 +0.1 85 Fiji 60.3 -0.7 146 Bolivia 49.4 -4.2 25 Saint Lucia 70.5 +1.7 86 Dominican Republic 60.3 +1.1 147 Ecuador 49.3 -3.2 26 Georgia 70.4 +0.6 87 Ghana 60.2 +2.1 148 Maldives 49.0 -2.3 27 Taiwan 70.4 +0.9 88 Mongolia 60.0 -2.8 149 São Tomé and Príncipe 48.8 +5.0 28 Botswana 70.3 +0.6 89 Lebanon 59.5 +1.4 150 Belarus 48.7 +3.7 29 Lithuania 70.3 +0.3 90 Burkina Faso 59.4 -0.1 151 Equatorial Guinea 48.6 -2.7 30 Belgium 70.1 -2.0 91 Morocco 59.2 +1.5 152 Central African Republic 48.4 +0.1 31 South Korea 69.9 +1.8 92 Croatia 59.2 +4.1 153 Guyana 48.4 0.0 32 El Salvador 69.9 +0.1 93 Rwanda 59.1 +4.9 154 Angola 48.4 +1.4 33 Uruguay 69.8 +0.7 94 Egypt 59.0 +1.0 155 Lesotho 48.1 -1.6 34 Czech Republic 69.8 +0.4 95 Tunisia 58.9 +0.9 156 Seychelles 47.9 +0.1 35 Slovakia 69.7 +0.3 96 Azerbaijan 58.8 +0.8 157 Sierra Leone 47.9 +0.1 36 Spain 69.6 -0.5 97 Tanzania 58.3 0.0 158 Uzbekistan 47.5 -3.0 37 Norway 69.4 -0.8 98 Nicaragua 58.3 -1.5 159 Chad 47.5 0.0 38 Armenia 69.2 -0.7 99 Honduras 58.3 -0.4 160 Burundi 47.5 -1.3 39 Qatar 69.0 +3.2 100 Zambia 58.0 +1.4 161 Togo 47.1 -1.6 40 Barbados 68.3 -3.2 101 Kenya 57.5 -1.2 162 Ukraine 46.4 -2.4 41 Mexico 68.3 +2.5 102 Swaziland 57.4 -1.7 163 Liberia 46.2 -1.9 42 Kuwait 67.7 +2.1 103 Bhutan 57.0 -0.7 164 Timor-Leste 45.8 -4.7 43 Oman 67.7 +0.7 104 Serbia 56.9 +0.3 165 Comoros 44.9 +1.6 44 Israel 67.7 +0.1 105 Algeria 56.9 +0.3 166 Kiribati 43.7 -2.0 45 Peru 67.6 +3.0 106 Nigeria 56.8 +1.7 167 Guinea-Bissau 43.6 -1.8 46 United Arab Emirates 67.3 +2.6 107 Cambodia 56.6 0.0 168 Iran 43.4 -1.2 47 The Bahamas 67.3 -3.0 108 Vanuatu 56.4 -2.0 169 Republic of Congo 43.2 -2.2 48 Malta 67.2 +1.1 109 The Philippines 56.3 -0.5 170 Solomon Islands 42.9 -3.1 49 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 66.9 +2.6 110 Bosnia and Herzegovina 56.2 +3.1 171 Turkmenistan 42.5 -1.7 50 Latvia 66.2 -0.4 111 Mozambique 56.0 +0.3 172 Democratic Republic of Congo 41.4 -1.4 51 Hungary 66.1 -0.7 112 Mali 55.6 0.0 173 Libya 40.2 -3.3 52 Jordan 66.1 +0.7 113 Brazil 55.6 -1.1 174 Venezuela 37.1 -2.8 53 Albania 66.0 +2.3 114 Indonesia 55.5 +2.1 175 Burma 36.7 -1.0 54 Costa Rica 65.9 -0.5 115 Benin 55.4 0.0 176 Eritrea 35.3 -3.2 55 Trinidad and Tobago 65.7 -2.3 116 Gabon 55.4 +0.4 177 Cuba 26.7 -1.2 56 Macedonia 65.7 +4.5 117 Pakistan 55.2 -1.8 178 Zimbabwe 21.4 -1.3 57 Jamaica 65.5 +0.3 118 The Gambia 55.1 -0.7 179 North Korea 1.0 -1.0 58 Colombia 65.5 +3.2 119 Senegal 54.6 -1.7 N/A Afghanistan N/A N/A 59 Malaysia 64.8 +0.2 120 Sri Lanka 54.6 -1.4 N/A Iraq N/A N/A 60 Panama 64.8 +0.1 121 Yemen 54.4 -2.5 N/A Liechtenstein N/A N/A 61 Slovenia 64.7 +1.8 122 Malawi 54.1 +0.4 N/A Sudan N/A N/A
Why you should consider economics as your major...
The Hot Major for Undergrads Seeking High Pay Is Economics
by Jessica E. Vascellaro
Provided by CareerJournal.com
What's your major? Around the world, college undergraduates' time-honored question is increasingly drawing the same answer: economics.
Colleges and universities in the United States awarded 16,141 degrees to economics majors in the 2003-2004 academic year, up nearly 40 percent from five years earlier, according to John J. Siegfried, an economics professor at Vanderbilt University. Siegfried tracks 272 colleges and universities around the country for the Journal of Economic Education.
The number of college students majoring in economics has been rising since the mid-1990s, according to the government's National Center for Education Statistics. Meanwhile, the number majoring in political science and government has declined and the number majoring in history and sociology has barely grown.
"There has been a clear explosion of economics as a major," says Mark Gertler, chairman of New York University's economics department.
The number of students majoring in economics has been rising even faster at top colleges. At New York University, for example, the number of econ majors has more than doubled in the past ten years. At nearly 800, it is now the most popular major.
Economics also is the most popular major at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where 964 students majored in the subject in 2005. The number of econ majors at Columbia University in New York has risen 67 percent since 1995. The University of Chicago said that last year, 24 percent of its entire graduating class, 240 students, departed with economics degrees.
The trend marks a big switch for the so-called dismal science, which saw big declines in undergraduate enrollments in the early 1990s as interest in other areas, like sociology, was growing. Behind the turnaround is a clear-eyed reading of supply and demand: In a global economy filled with uncertainty, many students see economics as the best vehicle for a job promising good pay and security.
And as its focus broadens, there are even some signs that economics is becoming cool.
In addition to probing the mechanics of inflation and exchange rates, academics now use statistics and an economist's view of how people respond to incentives to study issues such as AIDS, obesity and even terrorism. The surprise bestseller of the spring was Freakonomics, a book co-authored by a University of Chicago economist, Steven Levitt, which examines issues ranging from corruption among real estate agents to sumo wrestling.
Pooja Jotwani, a recent graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., says she is certain her economics degree helped her land a job in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s sales and trading division, where she will earn $55,000, not including bonus. She says the major strengthened her business skills and provided her with something very simple: financial security.
"People are fascinated with applying the economic mode of reasoning to a wide variety of issues, and these forces are causing them to study economics more and more," says Lawrence H. Summers, president of Harvard and former secretary of the Treasury.
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, economics majors in their first job earn an average of nearly $43,000 a year--not as much as for computer science majors and engineering majors, who can earn in excess of $50,000 a year. But those computer and engineering jobs look increasingly threatened by competition from inexpensive, highly skilled workers in places like India and China.
"Historically, the trends [in college degrees] are largely connected to perceived job prospects," says Marvin Lazerson, historian of education and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education in Philadelphia. He cites the recent example of computer science majors, whose ranks swelled in the 1990s and quickly subsided in the early 2000s, soon after the dot-com bubble burst and many companies started outsourcing computer-programming jobs abroad.
In contrast, economics and business majors ranked among the five most desirable majors in a 2004 survey of employers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, along with accounting, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. It wasn't just banks and insurance companies that expressed interest in economics majors--companies in industries such as utilities and retailing did so, too.
Like many people whose eyes glaze over at a supply-and-demand curve, Nicholas Rendler, a 19-year-old student at Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, says he finds economics boring. But he has gravitated to the topic anyway: He chose a major combining economics, sociology, and anthropology because he thinks economics is crucial to understanding the world.
"Economics can be very frustrating, but it is the world we are currently operating in and we need the basic framework," he says. Roberto Angulo, chief executive of AfterCollege Inc., a San Francisco online recruiting service with 267,000 registered users, says an economics major has practical job value. "Students are more employable if they study economics," he says. He graduated from Stanford University with an economics degree five years ago.
It isn't just the job calculus that is drawing students to the major: It also is the rapid spread of economic globalization. Many students around the world are wondering what effect global economic trends will have on them.
Foreign students studying in the United States are flocking to the major. Sabrina De Abreu, a student from Argentina about to start her senior year at Harvard, says her country's experiences made her choice easy. "When I grew up in Argentina, my country plunged into a recession," she says. "Understanding economics has become a fundamental part of my life."
Indeed, the rising popularity of the economics major appears to be a global phenomenon. A recent McKinsey Global Institute study found that the share of degrees in economics and business awarded in Poland from 1996 to 2002 more than doubled, to 36 percent from 16 percent; in Russia, the share jumped to 31 percent from 18 percent.
John Sutton, chairman of the economics department at London School of Economics, says the school's popularity is at an all-time high, in part due to interest from eastern Europe. Dr. Sutton says that as these countries undergo capitalist changes, "bright young students are beginning to see economic issues highlighted."
This article is reprinted by permission from CareerJournal.com, The Wall Street Journal career information site, © 2006, Dow Jones & Co. Inc. All rights reserved.
What is your political philosophy ? Take the World's Smallest Political Quiz to find out..
So, your answers indicate you might be a Libertarian. What does that mean?
"Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to his life in any way he chooses so long as he or she respects the equal rights of others. Libertarians defend each person's right to life, liberty and property-rights that people have naturally, before governments are created. In the Libertarian view, all human relationships should be voluntary; the only actions that should be forbidden by law are those that involve the initiation of force against those who have not themselves uses force-actions like murder, robbery, rape, kidnapping and fraud."
According to Charles Murray, What it Means to Be a Libertarian, Broadway Books, 1997
For more on Libertarianism log onto any of the following websites:
http://www.libertarianism.com/
http://www.libertarianism.org/
http://www.theihs.org/libertyguide/
http://www.cato.org/dailys/01-01-99.html
Economics from the lighter side....
