In its efforts to supervise Nebraska cattle producers' obedience to the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency is literally...

Jun 4, 2010

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2 Mins

Begin with the title. An “outlier,” in statistics, is an observation so far outside the general range of one’s data as to indicate a possibl

Jun 3, 2010

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10 Mins

Near the beginning of the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Butch Cassidy is challenged to a knife fight by another member of his Ho

May 30, 2010

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David Kelley Ph.D

8 Mins

Liberals have given conservatives much grief over the years for advocating an abstinence-only approach to sex education. “Kids are going....

May 30, 2010

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2 Mins

Many Leftist commentators are getting riled up about a report that BP’s damages in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are limited to $75 million. Here is Matthew L. Wald, writing yesterday at “Green,” the NYT’s Energy and Environment blog: "A 1990 law, the Oil Pollution Act [OPA], limits claims by fishermen, hotel owners and others against the operator of an offshore platform causing such pollution to $75 million." That is so misleading as to be false. BP is in Deep Something, and it isn’t Deep Water. Since the explosion occurred on April 20, the company’s stock has lost a quarter of its value, and no wonder. Analyst Greg Smith told Bloomberg that the ultimate cost to the company may be $10 billion.

May 29, 2010

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Imagine a person so utterly lacking in ordinary human feelings that he would pay one million dollar’s to man’s wife for handing over corporate information found on the fellow’s home computer. Would that not be the lowest act of insider trading imaginable? Would that not be the ultimate in despicable greed? Well, no, actually. That would be your high-minded, greed-fighting SEC at work .

May 28, 2010

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Former Google executive Brian Reid is suing the company for age discrimination, claiming that he was let go because he was not considered a “cultural fit” with the youthful corporate outlook. A district court found in the company’s favor, but an appeals court threw out that ruling. Now the suit is before the California Supreme Court. At issue, apparently, is the so-called “stray remarks” doctrine invented in 1989 by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Adding injury to insult, Reid was let go shortly before Google went public, which cost him a potential payday well into the millions of dollars.

May 27, 2010

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An inquiry into fraud (or indeed into direct physical coercion) must begin with an inquiry into rights. For neither fraud nor coercion can

May 21, 2010

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5 Mins

When Washington Post reporter Brooke Masters set out to write this thorough account of Eliot Spitzer’s career as attorney general of New....

May 21, 2010

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7 Mins

Enron will prove to be one of the most important episodes in the history of American business, and its story, from beginning to end, is

May 13, 2010

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10 Mins

The capitalist system came of age in the century from 1750 to 1850 as a result of three revolutions. The first was a political revolution...

May 12, 2010

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David Kelley Ph.D

10 Mins

Bill Clinton ran for president last year by attacking the 1980s as a "decade of greed" —attacking the leveraged buyouts and hostile takeover

May 12, 2010

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David Kelley Ph.D

10 Mins

BOOK REVIEW: Randall Smith, The Prince of Silicon Valley (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009), 368 pp. $30.00. Why was this biography published? True, the career of Frank Quattrone must be of interest to anyone concerned with American business history: He was the premier investment banker of the 1990s. But Quattrone today is only 54, and he has (as of March 2008) launched a new firm: Qatalyst Partners, self-described as “a technology-focused merchant banking boutique.” So, one could understand the publication of a lengthy magazine profile of Quattrone’s past, present, and future. But a book-length biography? It seems oddly timed. The explanation, I suspect, is that The Prince of Silicon Valley was never intended to be a biography of Quattrone, only an invitation to his beheading. It was probably conceived as another installment in the Left’s endless saga of “corporate crime and punishment.”

May 11, 2010

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February 19, 2009 -- Fear serves an important function, alerting us to perceived danger. As long as that perception is grounded in reality

May 7, 2010

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Bradley Doucet

6 Mins

You might not think being an undead creature of the night is such an attractive proposition, but peddlers of pulpy fiction know better...

May 7, 2010

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Bradley Doucet

4 Mins

May 5, 2010 -- “Billionaire Warren Buffett said he has studied the civil fraud charges against investment bank Goldman Sachs and has no problem with the transaction involved. Buffett, who is Berkshire Hathaway’s chief executive [and a major investor in Goldman], said yesterday that he thinks he understands the allegations against Goldman better than most people, and he does not believe the Abacus deal at the center of the case constitutes fraud.” So says an Associated Press report published on May 3. Unfortunately, I do not believe that Goldman’s chances of prevailing in court are as good as Warren Buffett thinks they are.

May 6, 2010

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February 6, 2010 -- A war of pies broke out recently over one of Canada’s most unpopular practices: hunting seals. On Monday, January 25..

May 6, 2010

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Bradley Doucet

5 Mins

April 30, 2010 -- Stephen Hawking has a warning for humankind. First of all, the celebrated theoretical physicist believes that there

May 5, 2010

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Bradley Doucet

5 Mins

It’s appropriate that for Earth Day a British court has essentially confirmed Gaia’s status as a goddess who is worshiped by eco-acolytes.

May 5, 2010

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Edward Hudgins

5 Mins

Fred Miller is professor of philosophy and executive director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University.

May 3, 2010

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Fred Miller

10 Mins