Introduction The Beacon blogsite recently featured a two-post debate on the feud between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the Walt Disney Company. The first post, by Samuel R. Staley, concluded that the governor’s “powerplay against Disney increasingly seems aimed at intimidating the business community and other opponents to stay silent [on public policy issues].” The second post, by Graham H. Walker, concluded, “the state is legally entitled to shape its public classrooms, and also to pull the plug on the special favor it had earlier granted to Disney. DeSantis’s effort to rescind Disney’s power …
I Was Oppenheimer’s Graduate Student
Julius Robert Oppenheimer is once more in the news, thanks to the highly publicized film “Oppenheimer.” As a physics graduate student at Princeton University in the early 1960s, I had occasional interactions with Oppenheimer, who was then the director of the Institute for Advanced Studies. He was not very friendly to students at this stage of his career. But having suffered more than his share from “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” he remained a sympathetic figure to most students. Although Oppenheimer was an outstanding theoretical physicist, it is not easy to be outstanding …
California Department of Incorrections
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is demanding that the California Globe correct a story about a secret biological lab in Reedley, near Fresno. The trouble is that the Globe did not publish the report in question, and the information in the story turned out to be correct. “Newsom administration muzzled Fresno Co. disclosure of Reedley COVID lab, county officials claim,” headlined the August 8 story in the San Joaquin Valley Sun. As reporter Daniel Gligich explained, “the State of California sought to limit Fresno County’s attempts to publicize the secret Reedley biologics lab …
The Ludwig von Mises: Catallactic Converter
Ludwig von Mises said something amazing—a sentence with just 25 words—with a profound insight into how societies work, or could work. The 25 words are these: The fact that my fellow man wants to acquire shoes as I do, does not make it harder for me to get shoes, but easier. One could teach an entire course in introductory economics on just this one sentence. There are three aspects of the claim I want to discuss to illustrate just how profound this insight is. 1. Catallactic converter: In the state of nature, I want shoes, and …
The Waste of Federal Government Office Space
Washington, D.C. can be an awful place during the summer. “Horrible, hot, and humid” is the phrase that headlines Washingtonian‘s Caroline Cunningham 2017 article discussing how to cope with it. By the end of the article, it’s clear relief can only be found from “cold, sweet, recirculated air.” Then again, perhaps the only thing worse than summer in Washington, D.C. is winter. The nation’s capital is infamous for shutting down whenever it snows. Often for days. How lucky it is then that the people who work in Washington, D.C., primarily bureaucrats who toil for the federal government, can …
The Lehman Trilogy
[Editor’s Note: The following reviews the play The Leman Trilogy, which is set to return to Broadway this fall. This article was originally featured on The Beacon in 2021.] If you happen to visit New York City soon, get tickets for The Lehman Trilogy, the three-and-a-half-hour play that traces the story of three generations of the family that founded the company whose collapse in 2008 symbolized and fueled the worldwide financial disaster. Originally written in Italian by Stefano Massini and adapted to English by Ben Power, the play is directed by Sam Mendes and masterfully …
U.S. Government’s Credit Rating Takes a Hit
The U.S. Government’s credit rating has taken a hit this week. Fitch Ratings downgraded the federal government’s credit rating from AAA to AA+. In taking that action, Fitch joins Standard and Poor in lowering its evaluation of the creditworthiness of the U.S. government. Standard and Poor lowered its assessment of the U.S. government’s credit rating from AAA to AA+ in August 2011. Then, as now, the U.S. government’s debt burden was rapidly increasing. Fitch’s commentary about its action indicates they don’t see that situation improving in the near future. The rating downgrade of the United States reflects the expected …
What Happens After Social Security’s Trust Fund Runs Out?
Earlier this year, Social Security’s Trustees reported that the trust fund, which supports about one-fifth of today’s Social Security payments, will run out of money at the end of 2033. When that happens, they say that every American who receives retirement or disability benefits will see them reduced by 20%. The program will still be able to pay out 80% of its benefits using what it collects through its payroll taxes. That will happen because the program has been running in the red. Since 2009, the program has paid out more benefits than it takes in through …
From Troubled Beginnings: The Journey of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Every conscientious adult must see Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer. Nolan deserves our deepest gratitude for using his enormous talent and notoriety to raise awareness of humanity’s nuclear weapons problem. Many critics have justly praised the film’s entertainment and artistic value. This review aims to provide historical context that might deepen the viewer’s appreciation of this timeless film, Oppenheimer. There are two crucial aspects of Oppenheimer, the man, that were not fully revealed in the film: (1) his antipathy to human beings and (2) his unbridled arrogance. These aspects of the man might be lost on viewers since …
American Conservatives Are the Forgotten Critics of the Atomic Bombing of Japan
“The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul,” he wrote. “The only difference between this and the use of gas (which President Franklin D. Roosevelt had barred as a first-use weapon in World War II) is the fear of retaliation.”Those harsh words, written three days after the Hiroshima bombing in August 1945, were not by a man of the American left, but rather by a very prominent conservative—former President Herbert Hoover, a foe of the New Deal and Fair Deal. In 1959, Medford Evans, a conservative …
CBO Sends Dire Fiscal Message in 2023 Long Term Budget Outlook
The Congressional Budget Office has released its 2023 Long-Term Budget Outlook. Within it, two charts stand out, which the CBO combined into one figure to convey its message. Here it is: What’s the message the CBO is sending? The U.S. government’s fiscal situation is getting worse. As the Washington Examiner’s Bruce Thompson reports, the CBO isn’t shying away from identifying the cause of the government’s fiscal problems: The report clearly shows the country has a massive spending problem. The numbers reveal that the rising budget deficits are the result of record-high levels of spending and not due to lower …
Shielding Buttigieg’s Jet-Set Waste is a Bipartisan Issue
Ten House Republicans, Fox News reports, have voted with Democrats to quash a bill that would have forced Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to “report his flight records on government-owned jets.” As we noted last December, Secretary Pete Buttigieg had taken at least 18 trips on jets funded by taxpayers, including a trip to Montreal, Canada, to receive an award. Exposure of the flights by Americans for Public Trust yielded no revelations on the cost of the flights and prompted no change in the Secretary’s wasteful habits. Last April 7, Buttigieg flew on a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) government jet from Ronald …
