Google is growing up. That was the message company representatives shared at Heritage this week on the Silicon Valley behemoth’s 13th birthday. (Click here to watch video of the event.) Google is making the case for the free market — and taking its message to conservatives. The Heritage Foundation hosted representatives from Google at Tuesday’s Bloggers Briefing. The meeting came just a few days after a Senate hearing in which Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt was grilled by lawmakers over the company’s search engine ranking practices. The search engine giant recently added …
Listen to your music on an iPod? Read news on an iPad? Cherish your beautifully minimalist iMac? Then you’ve benefited from the genius of Apple Inc.’s Steve Jobs. With the news this week of his decision to step down as CEO of the company, many have lauded his incredible successes in changing the way the world uses computers, consumes entertainment, and uses the Internet. But less has been said about the importance of his failures, the lessons Jobs learned, and what that can teach us about the free market. Nick …
Late last month, Smithsonian.com launched a “Department of Innovation” blog in hopes of reigniting President Barack Obama’s call for this generation’s “Sputnik moment”—in less glossy terms, that means taxpayer-funded corporate welfare to pursue the President’s pet projects. Fittingly enough, the “Department of Innovation” logo featured a series of cogs that, if put in motion, would grind to a halt. (We did our best to illustrate the likely results, above.) It seems that even when it comes to something as simple as putting together a logo depicting the gears of industry, government-funded …
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. Ten Oil Rigs Have Exited Gulf Since Obama Moratorium Went Into Effect – Kevin Mooney Save Your Tears for Borders – Mike Brownfield Labor Unions Stop the Music – F. Vincent Vernuccio & Adam Michel Juan Williams’ Wife: NPR Liberals Are Hypocrites – Ronald Kessler The Gang of Six Disaster: The Worst Plan So Far – James C. Capretta Poll: Majority of Young Hispanics Say Cut Spending, Liberate Private Sector – …
Advocates of big-government health care have ruthlessly attacked Representative Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) proposal to reform Medicare, which would give seniors a contribution to apply to the health plan of their choice. Under this “premium support” system, insurers would compete in newly created Medicare exchanges and would face pressure to offer high-value coverage at the best price possible. According to opponents, this would force seniors to pay for a growing portion of their health coverage as medical costs rise. But real-world examples prove that applying free-market principles to health care can …
The successful rescue of 33 Chilean miners trapped for 69 days has produced an outpouring of joy and triumph around the world. A well-deserved round of kudos goes to the miners themselves for maintaining their discipline and faith and to the engineers, scientists, and Chilean government officials who made the daring operation work. A share of the credit also belongs to Chile’s conservative President Sebastian Piñera, whose capacity for crisis management was proven by the nation’s impressive recovery from the February 27 earthquake. The Wall Street Journal reports: Observers say …
Remember Hotel Rwanda? That movie depicts the true story of a man fighting impossible odds to save everyone he could during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. Hotel Rwanda was a symbol of desperate hope for survival. Almost two decades later, by contrast, Rwanda has many symbols of hope for a brighter future. As a matter of fact, those hopes for the future have already been transformed into the reality of greater prosperity and opportunity for many Rwandans. Indeed, recent years’ economic reforms have made Rwanda one of the notable economies …
Last week, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke delivered a speech at the National Press Club titled “Back to Basics: A Blueprint for Exports-Driven Job Growth,” and remarked that “[President Obama’s National Export Initiative] will correct an economic blind spot that has allowed other countries to chip away at America’s international competitiveness.” The secretary also stated that “The United States is the most open major economy in the world…And that’s not going to change!” Well, unfortunately, “empirical reality” tells us a different story. According to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom, …
High corporate tax rates are undermining U.S. international competitiveness. The global economy continues to demand that companies be flexible and swift in order to remain competitive. High tax rates deprive companies of both the means and the incentive to take advantage of new market opportunities or technological changes that can improve productivity. Most advanced countries in the world have responded to new global economic realities by slashing corporate tax rates. The U.S. stands almost alone in having resisted such cuts, and its corporate tax rates are now among the highest …
The President asserted during a major speech in January: “One of the greatest contributions the United States can make to the world is to promote freedom,” he said. “A creative, competitive America is the answer to a changing world, not trade wars that would close doors, create greater barriers and destroy millions of jobs. We should always remember: Protectionism is destructionism.” But the President who spoke those words was Ronald Reagan, in his very last State of the Union Address about 20 years ago. How would President Reagan respond to …
