The Debt Dialogues [Episode 36]: Diana Furchtgott-Roth on the Fast Food Protests

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, on the recent demands by fast food workers for a $15 an hour minimum wage.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1A2mmnd

In the Sony Affair, Who Is the Real Coward?

There’s something entirely fitting in the fact that the most sensible thing said about Sony’s decision not to release The Interview comes from a place not known for saying sensible things — Hollywood itself — while the most risible comments come from a place that is supposed to have serious responses to things like foreign nations threatening American citizens for exercising their constitutional rights. That’s Washington, D.C. (in case you’ve forgotten that it’s supposed to be a serious place). Comparing the two views expressed is illuminating and goes a long way toward explaining why North Korea felt free to threaten Sony — indeed, all of us—in the first place.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1AY0OX0

Ayn Rand and Free Market Revolution in China

In September, ARI’s executive director Yaron Brook traveled to China to promote the newly published Chinese translation of Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government. We recently had the chance to sit down and talk about his China trip.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1vk7j2z

Proof that Inequality Harms Economic Growth?

If you follow the inequality debate, then you’ve no doubt heard that the OECD has just released a report claiming to show that economic inequality lowers economic growth. I’ll have more to say about the study itself soon. But the most striking thing is the response to the report: namely, that its conclusions have been trumpeted uncritically by the media and by everyone who already believes inequality is a problem.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1wu1Tq3

Freedom of Speech, “Islamophobia,” and the Cartoons Crisis [Podcast]

Is there a climate of self-censorship regarding Islam? Has fear led artists and writers to avoid discussion and criticism of Islam? So it seemed to the journalists at Jyllands-Posten, Denmark’s largest daily paper, in the fall of 2005.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/13DQskF

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 35]: Steve Simpson on Inequality, Democracy, and Money in Politics

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Steve Simpson, director of legal studies at the Ayn Rand Institute, on inequality, democracy, and money in politics.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1zsIBRF

Ayn Rand’s Novel Ideal to Be Released This Summer

On December 4, New American Library (NAL) announced it would publish Ideal on July 7, 2015, a novel penned by Ayn Rand more than eighty years ago. This will be the first Rand novel to be released since the 1957 publication of Atlas Shrugged. The announcement captured the attention of Ayn Rand enthusiasts as well as several media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NPR and Newsweek.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1wzc1xz

In Defense of First Class

Over at the L.A. Times, Michael Hiltzik uses flight travel as an analogy for today’s economic inequality. But he draws exactly the wrong lesson.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/12Xf1rt

Jonathan Gruber Is Not the Only One Guilty of Deception

Since the video surfaced last month of Jonathan Gruber admitting that deceiving the American public was necessary to pass Obamacare, several more videos have been discovered of the Obamacare architect singing the same tune. The value in Gruber’s comments is that they expose the collectivist ideology underlying Obamacare.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1zBmPw7

The Slim Get Slimmer, While the Fat Get Fatter

What would you make of this sort of argument? “We live in a dark world indeed when all of those people in Planet Fitness keep shedding pound after pound, while millions of other people are suffering from obesity.”



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1Bz5cz9

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 34]: Stephen Moore on Taxes

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, on taxes.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1waqOys

New Book: The Cause of Hitler’s Germany

For decades intellectuals have struggled to understand Nazi Germany. How could a country known as the “land of poets and philosophers” turn into a nation of killers? In The Cause of Hitler’s Germany — a republication of a portion of The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America, first published in 1982 — Objectivist philosopher Leonard Peikoff provides the answer.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1qqPnq8

How to Disarm the Inequality Alarmists

The other day I was on Kerry Lutz’s radio show discussing economic inequality and he asked me how to put the inequality alarmists on the defensive. Here was my quick take on that question.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1uaPouQ

What can you do about the debt crisis?

You’ve probably heard this before: America is facing a serious debt crisis. Economists estimate that the unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare amount to roughly $200 trillion. That’s about $400,000 per American.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/126y2b0

Apply Early to the 2015 Summer Internship

Want to spend part of your summer learning more about Ayn Rand from some of the world’s leading experts on her books and ideas? Whether you’ve studied Rand for years or just finished Atlas Shrugged, if you’ll be a college student or recent graduate this summer, consider taking advantage of the Thanksgiving break to get your application in order for ARI’s summer internship.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1yrqPyP

The Debt Dialogues [Episode 33]: Scott Winship on Inequality and Economic Growth

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Scott Winship, Manhattan Institute scholar, on inequality and economic growth.



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1zfEeIJ

Inequality and money in politics

Economist John Cochrane has a terrific op-ed on inequality in the Wall Street Journal in which he identifies money in politics as the chief target of the inequality warriors, as he calls the critics of income inequality. When you get past their bogus economic arguments, says Cochran, “most inequality warriors get down to the real problem they see: money in politics. They think money is corrupting politics, and they want to take away the money to purify the politics.”



from Ayn Rand Institute - Blog http://bit.ly/1yDwEJq