Jacob G. Hornberger: The coming economic fascism

  The recent efforts by President-elect Donald Trump and Vice-President-elect Mike Pence against Carrier Corp. provide us with a signpost of the economic fascism that lies ahead after both men take office. Whatever might be said about economic fascism, one thing is for sure: it is contrary to the principles of economic liberty, private property, the free market, and the rule of law.

  Targeting Carrier for daring to move some of its operations to Mexico, Pence, as governor of Indiana, offered the company a package of tax incentives to induce the company to keep some of its operations in Indiana. At the same time, Trump announced that as president he will punish any American company that moved abroad with the imposition of a high tariff on any goods it wished to ship into the United States.

Richard M. Ebeling: Americans see big corruption in big business

  A recently released report on the degree of confidence that Americans have in the country’s leading political and economic institutions shows that few of these institutions are held in high regard by the public.

  The survey was conducted by NORC, a respected research organization at the University of Chicago. It was found that only 11 percent of those asked expressed significant confidence in the institution of the presidency of the United States. About 23 percent of the citizenry expressed positive confidence in the Supreme Court. But, seemingly, no one has confidence in the United States Congress. Only seven percent of Democrats and five percent of Republicans expressed any great deal of confidence in the legislative branch of the federal government.

Sally Steenland: The conservative fairy tale about government

  When people tell stories rooted in fantasy, they’re called fairy tales. Such was the case last fall when Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) spoke at an anti-poverty forum at the Heritage Foundation. His remarks spun a mythical tale of our nation’s past, when kind, hard-working men and women helped their neighbors and didn’t need the big, bad government. According to Sen. Lee, a free-market economy and a volunteer society were all we needed to thrive. These two magical ingredients supposedly spurred "millions of ordinary Americans to make our economy very wealthy and our society truly rich."

Jacob G. Hornberger: Trade-deficit nonsense

  Do you ever wish that the federal government would stop publishing data on the so-called trade deficit? It would be one of the best things the government could ever do. At the very least, it would bring an end to the nonsensical obsessiveness over the trade deficit that characterizes so many mainstream economists.