America’s Soldiers Deserve Better

Washington, D.C. –Asked when American combat forces should be used to quell humanitarian crises that pose no threat to U.S. security, Barack Obama pointed to Darfur and Rwanda, saying, “When genocide is happening…and we stand idly by, that diminishes us.” McCain agreed: “We must do whatever we can to prevent genocide.”

But according to Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, “Vowing to send U.S. troops on selfless missions is a travesty.

“What Obama dismisses as standing ‘idly by’ really means: to protect the irreplaceable lives of American soldiers by refusing to ship them off on sundry ‘peacekeeping’ missions that do nothing to make us safe. That is not some cold-hearted gesture, but the government’s moral obligation. Nothing but a threat to American lives or freedom can justify putting our soldiers in harm’s way. Demanding they spill their blood in order to stop warring tribes from slaughtering each other is an obscene violation of their rights–regardless of how noble McCain or Obama thinks the cause is.

“Our soldiers deserve better. Instead of sacrificing U.S. treasure and lives for the alleged welfare of foreigners, we should demand a foreign policy that treats American security as its exclusive concern.”

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel, CNN, CNBC, and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

Unions Tout "Free Choice," Except for Employers

Washington, D.C. – If Democrats gain control of Congress this November, they are likely to enact some version of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which would revamp the way employees choose whether to endorse a labor union. Under current law, employees vote anonymously. But under the new scheme, they would vote with signed cards, open to union inspection, showing each employee’s name and vote.

“Even by Washington standards, this proposal is high hypocrisy,” said Thomas Bowden, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “This misnamed law claims to promote free choice for employees, but where’s the freedom for employers? Companies are forced by law to recognize and bargain with any union approved by a majority of employees–no choice allowed. Why is nobody speaking up for their rights?

“In a free society, the law would recognize the absolute right of companies and employees to deal with each other on an entirely voluntary basis. That means an employer would be free to bargain with workers individually, or through a union, as the parties’ economic self-interest dictates.

“Opponents of the proposed law fear, with good reason, that unions would intimidate anti-union workers into casting pro-union votes. But such problems arise only when government grants unions special privileges. In an unregulated labor market, if union promoters resorted to intimidation, a company would boot them from the premises, just as it would any employee, vendor, or visitor who introduced threats or violence to the workplace.

“The Employee Free Choice Act, if enacted, will obviously allow unions to target employees who can be pressured into voting yes. But the proper response to this transparent scheme is not merely to reject it, but to begin repealing the various labor laws that deny free choice in bargaining.”

Mr. Bowden is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, focusing on legal issues. A former lawyer and law school instructor, who practiced for twenty years in Baltimore, Maryland, his op-eds have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald, Los Angeles Daily News, and many other newspapers. Mr. Bowden has given dozens of radio interviews and has appeared on Fox News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes.

Why Big Government Is Back, and How to Shrink It to Its Proper Size

Washington, D.C. – In a talk delivered last week at the Costa Mesa Hilton in Orange County, California, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, explained the reasons for the resurgence of big government in America and called for a moral revolution to reduce government to its proper size and function.

According to Dr. Brook, the current level of government involvement in the economy is almost unprecedented in American history. As Dr. Brook noted, even though the current housing and financial crisis was brought about by government regulations, controls, and widespread interference with the markets, all we hear from the left and the right are calls for more government regulations, controls, and interference with the markets.

In Dr. Brook’s view, these calls for bigger and bigger government are due, not to any alleged failures of the market, but to a longtime cultural hostility to its moral basis: the selfish pursuit of profit.

Capitalism and markets, observed Dr. Brook, are all inherently about self-interest and the pursuit of profit. Capitalism encourages and enables selfishness, and as long as our culture looks at profit and self-interest as vices, he argued, big government will always be preferred to free markets.

Dr. Brook also made the point that capitalism has always been defended pragmatically, on the basis that it creates wealth and economic growth–which it does; but it’s time, he said, to defend capitalism on principle, on the basis of its morality, on the basis that it protects the rights of individuals to pursue their own values and allows them freedom to act in their own self-interest.

As Dr. Brook explained, the current crisis is indisputable evidence that we need a massive reduction in the size of government, in the number of regulations and in the level of taxation. But first, he said, we will have to reject the morality of altruism, which holds that self-sacrifice, not self-interest, is the good–and adopt a new morality of rational self-interest, one that says that pursuing our own personal values and goals under freedom is a good thing; and that only a morality compatible with capitalism and private markets will save us from this crisis and prevent an even worse one in the future.

Dr. Brook’s talk is available for free at: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_big_government

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

Credit Crisis Makes a Case for Abolishing, Not Expanding, the Fed

Washington, D.C. – In response to the credit crisis, the Federal Reserve has been granted unprecedented powers to bail out and nationalize companies–as if its track record makes it a good candidate for addressing our economic problems.

“The Federal Reserve is not the solution to the crisis, it is its root cause,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. “By keeping interest rates artificially low and inflating the currency, it created the illusion that homes and subprime mortgages were can’t-miss investments.

“Now, as we bear witness to the wreckage of the Fed’s previous central planning, the solution offered is even more Fed central planning. This is absurd. The way to prevent future credit crises is to get rid of the government’s arbitrary power to determine the money supply and the price of credit, and return to a gold standard.”

Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

Stop the Bailouts

Stop the Bailouts
September 22, 2008

Washington, D.C.–“Over the last year,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, “the central planners at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department have pretended that by bailing out homeowners, then bailing out investment banks, then bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they were wisely ‘steering’ the economy to protect us against some undefined ‘systemic risk.’

“But the mounting financial problems reveal that Paulson and Bernanke are as clueless as any other central planners who try to control an entire economy. They are not saving us from anything; they are delaying some of the pain that necessarily follows from a Fed-induced credit bubble, and redistributing that pain to innocent victims. They are punishing responsible individuals and rewarding irresponsible individuals.

“The bailouts must stop. The government must make clear that from now on, those who are in financial trouble must turn to the private market for help if they are to avoid failure; the government must no longer foist their failures on others, and invite another crisis in the future.”

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Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

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No Caps for Payday Loans

Ayn Rand Center Press Release

No Caps for Payday Loans
September 12, 2008

Washington, D.C.–Across the country, state lawmakers are capping the interest rates “payday lenders” can charge borrowers. According to supporters of these caps, payday loans are harmful to borrowers, trapping them in debt with allegedly exorbitant interest rates.

“The crusade against payday loans is unjust,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

“Despite the demonization of payday lenders, they provide a valued service: they make it possible for low-income, high-credit-risk Americans to get their hands on cash quickly. Without such loans, many of these Americans would have to resort to leaving bills unpaid, racking up massive credit card debt, or worse. That’s why they voluntarily accept substantial interest rates: they judge it to be their best available option.

“Contrary to the critics’ intimations, interest rates for payday loans are not set by the arbitrary decree of lenders. Instead, they are determined by market forces and reflect certain realities, such as the fact that making small, short-term loans to high-credit-risk customers isn’t profitable unless lenders can charge rates that reflect that credit risk. If it were possible to profitably offer such loans at a lower interest rate, competitors would enter the market and drive interest rates down.

“Caps on interest rates don’t change these underlying realities. Rather, they make it impossible for payday lenders to operate profitably, driving them out of business and depriving their potential customers of access to desperately needed cash. The fact that some borrowers make unwise decisions and become mired in debt doesn’t justify punishing lenders and responsible borrowers.

“It’s time to end the war on payday lenders, and recognize their right to charge whatever interest rates they wish in their efforts to attract willing borrowers.”

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Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

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Let Doctors Protect Conscience by Contract

Washington, DC – In its latest faith-based initiative, the Bush administration wants to shield anti-abortion and anti-contraceptive doctors from being fired for refusing to deliver such services. Opponents fear that proposed regulations creating “provider conscience rights” would leave rape victims without an emergency room doctor to prescribe morning-after contraception, or a pharmacist to dispense the pills.

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Greens Against Renewable Energy

Washington, DC – Green activists have been pushing for “renewable energy” for decades, even though it shows little promise–after billions of dollars in government subsidies–of ever being practical and inexpensive. Nevertheless, plans are springing up all over the country for large-scale solar, wind, and geothermal projects.

But now, in addition to their enormous technical obstacles, these green power projects are facing fierce opposition . . . from environmentalists.

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Iranian Smart Bomb

Islamic Censorship by Default

Washington, DC–Random House has called off publication of a historical novel about the Prophet Muhammad’s wife Aisha, after the company received advice the book could incite violence by Islamic radicals.

“Random House’s decision is the tragic result of America’s failure to defend free speech against totalitarian Islam,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.

“In 1989, when Ayatollah Khomeini called for the execution of Salman Rushdie and Islamists firebombed American bookstores, the United States did nothing. In 2006, when two major book chains refused to sell copies of Free Inquiry magazine featuring the Danish cartoons of Muhammad for fear of Muslim violence, the United States did nothing. Is it any surprise that some Americans are now afraid to publish material that could be deemed ‘offensive’ to Islam?

“If a publisher faces the prospect of violent reprisals, and knows that the U.S. government will do nothing to protect it, that is censorship–as much as if our own government had shut down Random House’s printing presses.

“The American government exists to protect our rights, including our right to free speech. By defaulting on its responsibility, it has allowed theocratic thugs to dictate what Americans can say, write, and publish. It needs to send a message that it will no longer tolerate any threat against the right of Americans to speak freely about any subject, including Islam.

“How much longer will our government allow Islamic radicals to tell us what we can say?

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