Fergus Hodgson

Altcoins Are the Real Bubble, Not Bitcoin

More than 100 altcoins have valuations exceeding $100 million. These coins are pretty much useless, if bitcoin proponents who deny a crypto bubble are right.

Cryptocurrency

Learn Bitcoin for 2018

When even my father — a retired sheep-and-cattle farmer in New Zealand — is asking about bitcoin, the cryptocurrency is no longer on the fringes. That doesn’t mean, however, that there is anything like widespread understanding or adoption for peer-to-peer transactions.

bitcoin-raw

The Overpopulation Dog-and-Pony Show

Population density is a non-issue, at least for the foreseeable future. The fact is that there are many uninhabited or sparsely inhabited locations that have room, but people prefer to live in dense urban centers.

iea-landsburg-population

Doug Casey’s ‘Drug Lord’ Honors the Good Rebel

Charles Knight is a good-rebel capitalist who does not steal or break his contracts, the central character of ‘Speculator’ and now ‘Drug Lord,’ and his story is both inspiring and ridiculously entertaining.

doug-casey-john-hunt

Public Choice: The Antidote to Faith in State Monopolies

That understanding makes laughable any call for professional monopolies to police themselves, and it behooves editorial boards like that of the Times Union to show a bit more intellectual courage, call out the elephant in the room, and advocate for competitive forces.

antidote-nurses

The Farm Bureau Is the Swamp

This policy study explains what I have now come to expect: ballooning and outlandish costs, impenetrable and overlapping complexity, double-dip cronyism, market distortions to give you a headache, no transparency, and, perhaps worst of all, an embedded special-interest group with an entitlement mentality, accompanied by a few spineless politicos.

farm-bill

Why America Is Great and Cuba Is Not

When Cubans flee their homeland, they say adiós to an island of lies. One such exile, with meticulous attention to academic rigor, has devoted his life to raising awareness regarding the plight of his fellow countrymen under the totalitarian communist regime.

cuba