A Mississippi judge recently allocated public funds for a murder defendant to hire a forensic expert in his defense. In the name of justice, courts elsewhere should emulate this example, according to Independent Institute Research Fellow Roger Koppl and Wright State University biology professor Dan Krane.
Because Osama bin Laden and some of his al-Qaeda brethren have long been suspected of hiding out in Pakistan's western frontier region, the recent step up of U.S. Special Forces in that area is long overdue. Unfortunately, according to Independent Institute Senior Fellow Ivan Eland, that new counterterrorism campaign also has a major strike against it: along with the presence of U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan, it is making the Taliban increasingly popular. In his latest op-ed, Eland offers a strategy for solving this problem.
An enduring myth of economic development is that lifting poor countries out of poverty requires transfers of wealth from rich countries—usually through grants, cheap credit and subsidies. In a recent op-ed for Barron's, and based on his recent book Lessons from the Poor: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Alvaro Vargas Llosa argues that government transfers have little to do with economic success.
Two examples from Peru illustrate his point. The Añaños family lived on a small farm in Ayocucho, an impoverished area terrorized by the Maoist militant group Shining Path. Sensing opportunity in the chaos, they hatched a plan to grow their family business by creating a new product for the Peruvian market—all without any government assistance. Thus was born a new soft-drink, Kola Real. "The Añañoses invited unemployed Peruvians with old vehicles to buy Kola Real at the bottling plants and resell it in their neighborhoods," writes Vargas Llosa. "They created a second tier of entrepreneurs who would prosper from Kola Real's success." Today, the family's company manufactures the leading nonalcoholic beverage from Latin America, with 8,000 employees and an estimated $1 billion in annual sales.
Similarly, Aquilino Flores moved from the dirt-poor Huancavelica region of Peru to Lima and began to wash cars for a living. A clothing merchant urged Flores to sell his cotton t-shirts, eventually putting Flores on the path to making and selling his own line of clothing. Today, the company he started—Topy Top—is Peru's leading textile exporter, earning more then $100 million annually and employing about 5,000 workers.
Both McCain and Obama claim to promote "change." Skepticism comes not only from doubting their willingness to implement meaningful change, but also in their ability to do so. Echoing Will Rogers, Independent Institute Research Fellow Donald Downs argues that few fundamental improvements can occur in Washington, D.C., so long as Congress is in session.
Three examples of Congress's intransigence are enough to illustrate this claim, according to Downs. First, independent economists told Congress for years that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed a major overhaul. Yet consider its recent bailout of those government-sponsored enterprise. Congress has left Fannie's and Freddie's lobbying machine intact, while increasing their power and lending authority. Second, Congress has done precious little to loosen the bottleneck in the energy supply line. Third, the House of Representatives has made itself an increasingly safe place for politicians running for reelection, with 94 percent of the incumbents who sought reelection in 2004 holding on to power.