Richard W. Rahn
Articles by Richard W. Rahn
Starting over in Venezuela
The economy of Venezuela has collapsed as a result of gross socialist mismanagement. The currency is essentially worthless. To start over, the next government of Venezuela must re-establish the rule of law, protect private property rights and create a new currency. Published February 25, 2019
How New York lost its population to increasing taxes and mounting debt
Last week, there was the pitiful scene of Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York begging President Trump to restore a tax provision which unfairly benefitted New Yorkers. It seems that many high-income New Yorkers have been moving their tax homes to Florida, undermining the New York tax base. Published February 18, 2019
Government debt, a real crisis
"Mankind is doomed!" Headline writers have been writing that headline since the invention of printing — and someday it will come about. For about four decades, that headline has most often been applied to the threat of global warming. Every couple of years, some notable comes out with a pronouncement that the governments of the world only have 5 or 10 years to make fundamental changes or we are all toast. The deadlines come and go, without action, and most people carry on with life as they always have. Published February 11, 2019
Destroying success with socialism
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ." Charles Dickens wrote those words referring to the era of the French Revolution a little over two centuries ago, but they could equally apply to today. Published February 4, 2019
Robert Mueller stages a grossly excessive, theatrical and costly raid
How many agents should a law enforcement organization send to arrest a highly visible, older, non-violent man, who is not a flight risk, for allegedly lying to Congress — particularly, when the individual has appeared numerous times on national TV saying he expects to be arrested and was obviously making no attempt to avoid law enforcement officials? Published January 28, 2019
How Brexit and U.K. troubles can be traced to the Stamp Act of 1765
The current troubles in the U.K. can be traced back to a fateful decision of King George III and the British Parliament in 1765 with the imposition of the Stamp Act on the American colonies. The Stamp Act placed a direct tax on printed materials, including legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers and many other types of paper. Published January 21, 2019
When socialism is romanticized
Who should pay for your health care? For your education? For your retirement? Published January 14, 2019
The return of the tax bullies
Bully: "A person who uses strength or power to harm or intimidate those who are weaker." Published January 7, 2019
Genocide, slavery and immigration
My New Year's wish for the coming year is for more of my fellow Americans and others to learn some basic history and try to get a grip on reality. Someone who writes for The New York Times under the name of Michelle Alexander wrote a column published last week, "Who Deserves Citizenship?" Published December 31, 2018
Why the Federal Reserve’s setting of interest rates is doomed
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell just announced another quarter-point interest rate hike. The markets immediately responded by dropping several hundred points. Published December 24, 2018
The uncertainty tax
President Trump's tariff turmoil, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May's bungled Brexit negotiations, French President Emmanuel Macron's tax fiasco, etc. are all causing a slowdown in productive global investment and economic growth. The recent decline in the stock markets can be largely attributed to policy uncertainty. Mr. Trump is not to blame for the European mess, but his erratic trade actions and other unpredictable comments have contributed to the drop. He was on solid ground when he took much of the credit for the stock market rise, but now he needs to take some of the blame for the fall. Published December 17, 2018
When the bureaucracy goes too far
What do the Paris riots, Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, the dusky gopher frog and Peter Wallison's new book "Judicial Fortitude" all have in common? They are all signs that the peasants have had it with the bureaucratic state and the smug elitists who have been ruling the globe. Despite never-ending attempts to quash it, the basic human desire for liberty keeps re-emerging. Published December 10, 2018
Too little progress against death and taxes
Want to live longer? Your odds improve if you are a rich, well-educated Asian or European woman accountant who engages in moderate exercise. If you are an overweight retired professional football player, your odds of having a shorter than average life-span are high. Olympic athletics have a longer than average lifespan, while athletes who engage in contact sports have shorter than average lifespans. Contact sports frequently cause a variety of damage to the bone and skeletal system, as well as to the brain, whose effects grow over-time. Published December 3, 2018
The democracy myth
Would you prefer to live in a country that has a high degree of individual liberty but is not a democracy, or live in a democracy where individual liberties are curtailed? Published November 26, 2018
The dumb courtship of Amazon
Would you vote for a politician who promised to both increase traffic congestion and increase your taxes — and yes, I wrote "increase." For those of us who live in Northern Virginia that is precisely what happened last week, when our state and local government officials announced with considerable fanfare that they had bribed Amazon — with billions of taxpayer money — to build one of its new headquarters in Virginia. With great pride, they also told us that they paid a much smaller bribe to Amazon per promised new job than did the New York governor and mayor. (Virginia Motto: We are not as dumb as New Yorkers.) Published November 19, 2018
How countries maintain economic freedom and restrain corruption
We have many ways to measure how well public officials in all countries are behaving. Each year, various organizations provide country rankings as to how well countries are doing in maintaining economic freedom, restraining corruption, protecting civil liberties, including religious freedom, etc. One of the measures is the annual report by the World Bank on Doing Business. The 2019 report ranking 190 countries has just been released. The report investigates "the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it," including property rights and labor policies. Published November 12, 2018
How ‘death lobbies’ flourish
The two biggest causes of death in the 20th century were smallpox and democide. As bizarre as it may seem, there are growing numbers of people who are lobbying to bring back policies that caused so much human misery. Published November 5, 2018
Limits of economic knowledge
The good news is that the U.S. economy is now on track to grow more than 3 percent this year for the first time in 13 years. The bad news is that the economy would be growing even faster if it were not for policy mistakes. Published October 29, 2018
Hope for Central America may be found in new technologies
As I write this, there is a caravan of several thousand people coming north, primarily from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, with the intent of illegally entering into the United States. Published October 22, 2018
‘Who rules you?’
All of us are subject to many thousands of federal, state, and local laws and regulations, many of which are needlessly oppressive. Who makes these rules, and who enforces them? And at what point are there so many rules that we are no longer free? Published October 15, 2018
