Reginald Kaigler — NeoCons Dominate 2016 Race! Obamacare Collapsing! UnitedHealth May Exit Exchange!

My commentary on the latest controversies of the Trump campaign, how Clinton and most of the GOP are pushing for the agenda and why Obamacare is failing.

Jonathan Blanks — Reflecting on the 150th Anniversary of the Thirteenth Amendment

via Cato Institute

On this day 150 years ago, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, thus officially ending chattel slavery in the United States. America’s original sin—its birth in freedom based on human slavery—was no longer sanctioned by American law.

To get to this historical moment, the United States wrestled with its heinous contradiction in its homes, cotton fields, courtrooms, public streets, legislature...s, Bleeding Kansas and, ultimately, the many battlefields of the Civil War. The racism that supported slavery was so ingrained in our national character and economy that it cost the United States hundreds of thousands of lives.

Of course, America’s racial wounds were not healed with Abolition. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments went further to ensure racial equality (for men) before the law—on paper, anyway. Years of Jim Crow and state-tolerated white terrorism after the end of Reconstruction showed America’s laws and purported ideals could still be subverted by the enduring legacy of racism throughout the country.

Today, black Americans are far freer than ever, but still face unequal treatment by law enforcement. Certain police practices are almost exclusively deployed in black neighborhoods—the neighborhoods themselves remnants of de jure segregation—reifying not-yet-equal status for too many black Americans. And the aggressive application of our criminal laws has led to mass incarceration, which disproportionally imprisons African Americans across the country.

Read the full article HERE.

Randall Kennedy: Sellout

Author Randall Kennedy grapples with a stigma of our racial discourse that is a subject of much anxiety and acrimony in black America: "selling out," or racial betrayal. The new book, which comes in the wake of his controversial national best-seller, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, shows how usage of the word "sellout" bedevils blacks and whites, while elucidating the effects it has on individuals and on our society as a whole.

  

Fabrice L. Lohadie — To Millennials’ Supporters of Bernie Sanders: Curb your enthusiasm

via Afro-Libertarian.com


As a fellow millennial, however, I don’t look at Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign with rose-tinted glasses. His policies have been tried elsewhere, and they failed. To tackle his country’s dismal youth unemployment rate, Francois Hollande, for example, started a youth job initiative to subsidize employers in order to hire and train young people between 18-25. The program has not relieved France’s youth jobless rate, however. When Hollande started this $3.7 billion (3.5 Billion Euro) initiative to provide up to 75% of young workers’ salaries, France’s youth unemployment rate was around 25%. Two years later, things have not changed much, as illustrated below.

Instead of tackling the root cause of the problem, Bernie Sanders’s proposals will simply paper over it. For instance, youth unemployment rate in Urban America is quite high due to regulations such as minimum wage laws and occupational licensing, which discourage employers from hiring young people on a market rate basis, and keeps many from gainful employment. Therefore, his youth job initiative to subsidize up to a million jobs for disadvantaged youth will fall short, à la française. So, it is imperative for millennials and others to ask critical questions, and not just abide by herd mentality.

Even though millennials’ attachment to Bernie Sanders baffles me, I empathize with them. Many have graduated college with large debts, face under-employement, unable to rent or own a house like their parents before them, etc..In addition, they have been indoctrinated by society and the media that praise government intervention in the economy. It is difficult not to fall into this trap. Even many free market thinkers also fell for this vision.

Read the full article HERE.

Dr. CHE Sadaphal — On the Minimum Wage

The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour. President Obama, in his 2014 State of the Union address, called for this wage to be increased to $10.10 per hour. The rationale is that increasing the minimum wage will benefit workers, lift people out of poverty, boost the economy through increased spending, and correct the diminishing value of the current minimum wage by adjusting for inflation. On a federal level, efforts to raise the minimum wage have stalled, but such efforts have progressed in many states (e.g., Vermont at $10.50 an hour by 2018 and Connecticut at $10.10 an hour by 2017) and municipalities (e.g., Seattle at $15 an hour rolled in over time and Los Angeles at $15 an hour by 2020). In some instances, local groups have taken even bolder steps. The Micah Institute, for example, launched the Real Living Wage NYC Campaign this month that seeks to secure $20 per hour for all New York City workers. This figure is not arbitrary, but is the wage required to meet basic needs without government subsidies in Manhattan. MIT has calculated that a genuine “living wage” for an individual living in New York City is $14.30 per hour.

A wide range of opinions exists on tinkering with the minimum wage, as does a lack of consensus about the overall effects of an increase in the figure. Moreover, politics, as usual, tends to taint the facts with agenda-serving biases, so it is very difficult to obtain an objective analysis on whether raising the minimum wage is in fact helpful or harmful.

The point that I hope to convey is that any way you go, someone is going to lose something in the minimum wage fight—it’s just a matter of what they loose and how much. What one chooses to do thus becomes a matter of what variable holds the most weight in their economic equation: profit, workers, or ethics.

On the one hand, full-time employment of 2,080 hours a year at the current federal minimum of $7.25 an hour yields an income of $14,500 a year. This amount is above the individual annual income poverty threshold of $11,770 but below the poverty line of $15,930 for one adult supporting one child. Essentially, what the federal government is saying is that it has set the floor on what an employer can legally pay an employee while also recognizing that the same floor places that employee either just above or well under the threshold of destitution. Living in one of the boroughs of New York City, I am wholly incapable of imagining how a full-time minimum wage worker making $290 a week is able to survive. Honest work deserves honest pay, and $7.25 an hour is nowhere near honest. Even if a $15 an hour minimum wage was federally enacted, a full-time worker would still be making $31,200 a year, a figure significantly below the median 2013 U.S. annual household income of $52,250.

 

Read the full article HERE.

Reginald Kaigler — How My Philosophy Has Evolved!

I talk about how I began the man that I am today. I also discuss why so few black people want to become leaders in their community.

Akil Alleyne — Dear Yalies: Stop Asking to be Intellectually Pampered

College students should tackle prejudice through dialogue, debate, and direct action, not appeal to administrators to fight those battles for them.

Starbucks XMas Protests = Right-Wing Political Correctness

Dr. Fitz N Dinka — Bad Policymaking: A Recipe to National Asphyxiation

One of the most strategic driving forces behind the wellbeing of a society or an economy is policymaking. The various policies laid out by policy makers go a long way to either ameliorate different aspects of a society and hence the economy or hold it back.

Policymaking is the act of creating laws or setting standards for a government, organization or business. These changes usually come as a result of the identification, monitoring and evaluation processes where trends are uncovered, or as a direct result of a pressing situation within an organization or a society.

In an ideally running society, the government makes policies for the protection and wellbeing of the citizens and population at large, and to ensure a better and smooth running of the economy. Some policies however, especially within corrupt governments are passed for selfish reasons. Lawmakers generally are people of position, power and wealth. They may run or oversee businesses, whose interests naturally have to be protected. They are well in position to do so. Where selfishness and greed surpasses rational reasoning, policies will be made that will protect businesses even at the expense of the wellbeing and wishes of the society. It is a common practice worldwide.

Read the full article HERE.

Jonathan Blanks — To reach blacks, libertarians must begin to understand the African-American experience

Libertarians tend to think of freedom as either a means to an end of maximum utility—e.g., free markets produce the most wealth—or, in a more philosophical sense, in opposition to arbitrary authority—e.g., “Who are you to tell me what to do?”

Both views fuel good arguments for less government and more personal autonomy. Yet neither separately, nor both taken together, address the impediments to freedom that have plagued the United States since its founding.

Many of the oppressions America has foisted upon its citizens, particularly its black citizens, indeed came from government actors and agents. But a large number of offenses, from petty indignities to incidents of unspeakable violence, have been perpetrated by private individuals, or by government with full approval of its white citizens.

I would venture that many, if not most libertarians—like the general American public—haven’t come to terms with the widespread, systemic subversion of markets and democracy American racism wreaked on its most marginalized citizens. Consequently, libertarians have concentrated rather myopically on government reform as the sole function of libertarian social critique without taking full reckoning of what markets have failed to correct throughout American history.

Read the full article HERE.

Akil Alleyne — No, I Wouldn't Kill Baby Hitler--& Neither Should You

Even Hitler wasn't predestined to turn out to be a racist, imperialist, genocidal tyrant. Ergo: No killing baby Hitler.

 

Akil Alleyne — The Black Libertarian Case Against Ben Carson

It's such a shame that the first seemingly viable black Republican presidential candidate ever has been steadily destroying his political credibility outside of the hardcore GOP base. In this video, I take a crack at analyzing some of his more outrageous campaign trail statements.

Akil Alleyne — Why This Libertarian Supports Some Forms of Gun Control

People should be free from government interference and coercion as long as they're not harming others. Guns, however, are instruments of harm, and it's justified for government to take some steps to keep them out of the hands of genuine criminals and to ensure that law-abiding citizens keep and bear them competently and responsibly.

 



Walter E. Williams — The Struggle for Economic Liberty

Via TownHall.com: 

"Here's my taxi question. If a person is law-abiding, has a driver's license, has a car or van that has passed safety inspection, and has adequate liability insurance, is there any consumer-oriented reason he should not be able to become a taxicab owner/operator? Put another way: If you wish to hire the services of such a person, what right does a third party have to prevent that exchange?

Many cities have granted monopoly power to taxi companies -- the right to prevent entry by others. Sometimes this monopoly takes the form of exclusive government-granted rights to particular individuals to provide taxi services. In other cases, the number of licenses is fixed, and a prospective taxi owner must purchase a license from an existing owner. In New York City, such a license is called a taxi medallion. Individual medallions have sold for as high as $700,000 and corporate medallions as high as $1 million. In other cities -- such as Miami, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston -- taxi licenses have sold for anywhere between $300,000 and $700,000. These are prices for a license to own and operate a single vehicle as a taxi."

Read the full article HERE.

Fabrice L. Lohadie — Why Joseph Kabila Will Cling on to Power

As we slowly approach November 2016, it is becoming increasingly clear that Joseph Kabila will extend his stay in power.

via: The Afro-Libertarian

Despite the Congolese president remaining mum on the subject, his supporters tried (unsuccessfully) to extend his stay by mandating a census before the 2016 general elections, but that option was killed off after mass protests nationwide. Now, they have turned to another option: decentralization or découpage. Their plan is to divide DRC’s 11 provinces into 26, and then use this administrative gargantuan task as an excuse to delay and postpone the 2016 elections. If this option fails, Kabila and supporters will find other intricate ways to extend his tenure. Below, I provide a number of reasons why I strongly believe that Kabila will try to remain in power post-2016, in no particular order:

Read more »

Patrice J. Lee — Waste and Abuse Plague Medicare Ambulance Rides

Via The Independent Women's Forum: 

Medicare, the whopping multi-billion dollar federal social safety net program that provides healthcare for 50 million elderly and disabled Americans, is plagued with fraud, abuse, and waste. No surprise there, unfortunately. 

What is surprising? The creativity of the latest bad actors who are abusing this system for gain. We learn from a new federal watchdog report that Medicare paid more than $50 million in potentially improper bills from ambulance companies for questionable rides. Either the ambulance rides should not have been covered by Medicare or they never occurred.

  
Read the full article HERE.

The Man Who Launched the GOP’s Civil War

It was weirdly appropriate that Boehner chose to end his farewell press conference with the tune from A Song of the South. It was Milliken who moved to a solidly Democratic Dixie and transformed it into a bastion of Republicanism. Milliken built the South Carolina GOP into a national force, convincing Sen. Strom Thurmond to switch parties and birthing the “Southern Strategy” that put Richard Nixon and later Ronald Reagan into the White House. It was Milliken who inspired all future conservative candidates by pushing Barry Goldwater to run for president, then bankrolling his landmark campaign. Milliken was also the financial patron of the influential libertarian “Freedom School,” which trained a generation of conservative kingmakers, including Charles Koch. “He was the John the Baptist of the Koch Brothers,” says Marko Maunula, a historian at Clayton State University in Georgia. 

It was appropriate, too, that when Boehner prepared to quit, he reportedly turned to Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of committee investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, to encourage the South Carolina congressman to help take his place in the House leadership. Gowdy represents Milliken’s adopted home district of Spartanburg and helping to elect Gowdy in 2010 was one of the final political acts of Milliken’s life. He died just weeks after Gowdy won the House seat, after donating the maximum to Gowdy’s campaign.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/roger-milliken-republican-party-history-213212#ixzz3nVKnDVey

Nick Gillespie — No, Police Defenders, There Is No ‘War on Cops’

(The Daily Beast)

"There’s no excuse for the brazen, chilling murder of Harris County Sheriff Darren Goforth, who was shot repeatedly while fueling his police cruiser at a Texas gas station and whose funeral is Friday.

But there’s also no excuse for attempts by law enforcement, media, and politicians to claim that the unmotivated killing is part of a “war on cops” or in any way related to the Black Lives Matter movement or other people critical of law enforcement and police brutality.

To do so is simply to wave away a decade-long decline in confidence in police that has everything to do with behavior by law enforcement, not the citizens they serve. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans with “a great deal/quite a lot of confidence” in police has dropped from 64 percent in 2004 to just 52 percent, its lowest number in 22 years."

Read the full article HERE.

Does BlackLivesMatter Campaign Encourage Cop Killers?

How ‪‎Uber‬ is serving low-income New Yorkers

(NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

As most New Yorkers know by now, Uber is expanding rapidly here: The city saw an impressive 450% growth in low-cost UberX rides over the course of last year. In a new report for the Manhattan Institute, I use Uber’s 2014 private ride data (no personal information on individual riders was disclosed) to determine the effects of the company’s increased presence on the city’s lower-income, outer-borough residents.

My analysis finds that Uber’s expansion has benefited low-income New Yorkers — those who live in the bottom half of New York City zip codes by median household income — the most.

Read the full article HERE.

Is the Black Lives Matter Movement Libertarian?

(Reason Magazine)

"Activists from Black Lives Matter have launched an initiative called "Campaign Zero," which seeks to bring down the number of people killed by police in the U.S. each year. The initiative includes ten proposals for reform that would help make that happen. Those are: 1) End Broken Windows Policing, 2) Community Oversight, 3) Limit Use of Force, 4) Independently Investigate & Prosecute, 5) Community Representation, 6) Body Cameras, 7) Training, 8) End for-profit policing, 9) Demilitarization, 10) Fair police union contracts. 

Each of the policy proposals is explained in more detail at JoinCampaignZero.org. Among the proposals, activists suggest decriminalizing marijuana and the public consumption of alcohol. Several of the policy proposals (like an end to broken windows policing and an end to for-profit policing) will be impossible without engaging and interrogating the value of petty law enforcement, which disproportionately affects the poor. Things like "community representation" may make this harder—despite the rhetoric, the kinds of petty laws that can lead to questionable police shootings are generally supported in the communities where they're enforced. "Quality of life" laws, the kind that pit police officers against peaceful residents doing something other residents may not approve of, enjoy broad support among voters. That's why the laws are there. "

Read the full article HERE.

The Moral Urgency of Criminal Justice Reform

            

CHE Sadaphal — The Black Libertarian Case Against Voter ID Laws

The libertarian physician and minister, in his latest article, "Voter ID: Bias or Necessity", ask this crucial question: are voter ID laws racially biased or completely benign and necessary for the enhancement of our democracy?

He writes: "On July 13^th, a federal trial began in Winston-Salem over the 2013 North Carolina law (H.B. 589) that repealed a series of voting access measures—such as same-day voter registration, early voting, pre-registration for eligible high school students and out-of-precinct voting—that were enacted over the last two decades. The law also required a voter ID, or photographic identification, for everyone voting in person. As The New York Times recently reported:

Lawmakers claimed that H.B. 589, which was approved in a sneaky last-minute maneuver that insulated it from any real debate, would reduce fraud and inefficiency in elections. In truth, it is a pile of blatantly discriminatory measures that lawmakers knew would make voting harder, if not impossible, for many lower-income citizens — who are disproportionately black and Latino, and many of whom tend to vote Democratic. The election-law scholar Richard Hasen has called it “the most sweeping anti-voter law in at least decades.”"

How to Stop Brutality-Adjacent Policing

We need to train police officers to be “guardians,” not warriors.

     

(The American Conservative)

What happened to Sandra Bland? This is a question many Americans (particularly, and rightfully, black American women) are asking, following the death of a young civil rights activist in a Waller County, Texas jail cell two weeks ago. Was any of it—her arrest after a traffic stop by state trooper Brian Encinia, her three-day detention, the neglect that resulted in her alleged suicide by hanging—legal?

Bland’s death remains under investigation, but the dashboard camera footage of her interaction with Encinia shows the escalation of a warning for the failure to signal into the forceful detention of an epileptic woman. Surprisingly, much of what occurred between Encinia and Bland appears to have been legal, if imprudent. Encinia’s tactics could be called “brutality-adjacent policing,” in which the standard for behavior is the bare legal minimum rather than actively good policing.

Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-to-stop-brutality-adjacent-policing/

Reginald Kaigler — SUPER MONOPOLIES in Healthcare! Anthem targets Cigna! Aetna Buys Humana!

My commentary on how Obamacare is creating monopolies in the U.S. health insurance industry, the Chinese economy struggling, U.S. government propaganda to convince Americans that the economy has recovered. 

 

Black Libertarian Responds to #AllLivesMatter Campaign

Akil Alleyne, a black Libertarian lawyer and writer, takes issue with those pushing the #AllLivesMatter campaign.

Alex Ndungu Njeru ― For Africa, Lessons From Hong Kong And The Umbrella Revolution

(Source: AfricanLiberty.com)

The African libertarian writer on lessons learned from Hong Kong's economic success: "They have it all; economic freedom, one of the highest Gross Domestic Product per capita in the world (53,203 US$D), the infrastructure is perfect and systems work like clockwork. So why are the Hong Kong citizens agitating for electoral reform and political freedom? In relative terms most citizens of repressed countries in the world would give up everything to be where Hong Kong residents are at, take citizens of North Korea or Venezuela for example and the development and freedoms that residents of Hong Kong enjoy. The Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong is teaching us pertinent lessons about human nature. The struggle gives life to popular phrase that ‘the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance.’ The nature of man is that he wants it all, give a man the earth and he will want the universe, give him the universe and he will seek the multi-verse and the unknown."

He continues his commentary: "That it is what it is in Hong Kong, the residents have reaped dividend from economic freedom, now they want to reap dividend from political freedom. Are they sure that political freedom will deliver dividends sweet or bitter? No they are not; they want the freedom to explore the unknown. Creation theory has it that Adam and Eve were banished from the garden of Eden because of the quest to gain the knowledge that ensues from freedom. The Hong Kong Umbrella revolution is emblematic of the human development process and the natural state of man, ‘man naturally seeks freedom.’"

Read the full article HERE.

George B. N. Ayittey | The New Path for Africa: Establishing Free-Market Societies

Why has Africa, despite its rich history, cultures, and abundant resources, largely remained in the grip of dictatorship, starvation, genocide and war? How can this tragic legacy of colonialism, socialism, and plutocracy be replaced with the welfare of economic liberalization, individual rights, and the Rule of Law? Based on his new book, "Africa in Chaos," award-winning economist George Ayittey will examine the record of American statism and the revolution for free-market societies. 

Japheth J. Omojuwa ― Why Government Fails In Nigeria

The Nigerian libertarian explains why Government is failing Africa's largest economy: "In January 2013, a few Nigerian citizens got emails about the danger of abandoning Bagega, a lead poisoned village in Zamafara unremediated. There was the danger of losing at least 1500 children to lead poisoning, not to mention the attendant danger to adults. There was meant to be a reason to fear for the lives of residents of Bagega as they had been  promised a quick remediation process when the president Dr. Goodluck Jonathan said money would be released for the purpose. Nothing happened for about 10 months. Bagega residents had been living through lead poison for at least 2 years. Then these citizens bought into the idea of saving Bagega, launched a Twitter hashtag #SaveBagega, got the phone numbers of certain Senators and Lawmakers, got the buy-in of a major Senator. The Twitter campaign was intense, the phone calls never stopped. In just less than 3 days, the FG released the money for the remediation of Bagega. The remediation happened. Children got saved. Change happened. All of this under the same government that never really cared. What really changed? Ordinary citizens became active citizens. They activated change by using the government to do what it was meant to do but left undone for years.

He continues his commentary: The formation of Enough Is Enough Nigeria happened through the same process. A President was ill and was dying, a Vice President needed to be made acting President to keep the state running. In a sane democracy, that would have happened automatically. Nigeria’s situations often come with a few drops of insanity and this had loads of it. A power cabal refused to let the VP become acting president citing technicalities in the departure of the president. The president never handed over to the acting president when he made the journey abroad to Saudi Arabia for treatment. Again, ordinary citizens got together. They were young, they were mostly meeting one another for the first time. They agonized, then organized, then marched. In Lagos and Abuja. That accident birth EIE Nigeria. It was a birth necessitated by the needs of the Nigerian society. The doctrine of necessity happened at the Nigerian National Assembly,Goodluck Jonathan, then powerless and redundant Vice President soon became Acting President. When he eventually became the President following the eventual death of President Yar’Adua in May of 2010, it was a smooth transition but only because the battle had been won weeks before. Won mostly by ordinary citizens taking the role of the citizen, playing to the responsibility of the active citizen, acting in the office of the modern day active citizen."

Read more: http://www.africanliberty.org/the-office-of-the-citizen-and-why-government-fails-in-nigeria-japheth-j-omojuwa/

Blacks & Guns

Reginald Kaigler — Greek Vote NO! Critical Decision for EUROZONE!

Akil Alleyne — A Referendum on the EU/IMF Austerity Bailout is Exactly What Greece Needs

The Greek people should be the ones to decide whether to accept the bailout and the austerity strings attached to it--not only because it's the most democratic approach, but also because it will force ordinary Greeks to confront the consequences of the fiscally irresponsible policies for which they've voted for years.

Why shouldn't libertarians support the Confederacy

In short, because the Confederacy itself was not very libertarian.      

In addition to being founded explicitly to protect the slave trade in America, the Confederacy conscripted soldiers, inflated its money supply during the war, and played host to many civil liberties violations. But that's not to say that the Union was much better, as Jason Kuznicki (@jasonkuznicki) explains.

Kuznicki is a Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is editor of Cato Unbound.

Akil Alleyne ‏— The Two Questions You Should Ask When Someone Says it's about "Heritage, Not Hate":

The black-libertarian lawyer opines about the symbolism of Confederate Battle Flag.

George Ayittey ― The solutions to Africa's problems lie in Africa

Sean Jacobs ― Remembering Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew

(via HipHopRepublican.com)

‘We start with self-reliance,’ said the late Lee Kuan Yew in a 1994 interview. ‘In the West today it is the opposite. The government says give me a popular mandate and I will solve all society’s problems.’

On 22 March 2015 Lee passed away at age ninety-one. The end of his remarkable life offers a sobering reflection on what it takes to actually build an economic pie and not just cut it up – a practice many of today’s democratic practitioners appear exceptional at.

Singapore now thrives alongside the Silicon Valleys and Tel Avivs of the world. Back in the 1960s, however, Malaysia effectively dusted its hands of the small nation by forcing it to break away.

A future of poverty and desperation appeared likely until Lee, warding off communist subversion and the revolving emergence of security threats, turned Singapore’s slim fortunes around. ‘He did not just pilot Singapore to prosperity,’ added Margaret Thatcher, ‘he became the most trenchant, convincing and courageous opponent of left-wing Third World nonsense in the Commonwealth.’

Read more at: http://www.hiphoprepublican.com/testament-to-power-remembering-singapores-lee-kuan-yew/

Anthony B. Bradley ― The Power of Market-Driven Diversity

The Supreme Life Building is a historic insurance building located in Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1921, the building served as the headquarters of the Supreme Life Insurance Company, which was founded two years earlier. The company, originally known as the Liberty Life Insurance Company, was the first African-American owned insurance company in the northern United States.

(via the Acton Institute Blog):

The story of Chicago-based Supreme Life Insurance Company of America, one of the most venerable black-owned businesses in American history, challenges the prevailing fiction that minority customers need the government to guarantee services for them and is a dynamic reminder of the power of markets as a basis for economic freedom.

Supreme was originally incorporated as the Liberty Life Insurance Company in 1919. An amazing 1969 study of this company by Dr. Robert C. Puth in Harvard’s Business History Review inadvertently dispels all sorts of myths about black businesses and black life during the era of legalized racial discrimination. The article, “Supreme Life: The History of a Negro Life Insurance Company, 1919-1962” details, for example, the existence of thriving black-owned businesses during that era, a fact of which many are unaware. By 1960 the forty-six firms of the National Insurance Association—a coalition of all black owned, managed, and operated firms—had $1.7 billion of insurance in force and held $300 million in assets. In today’s terms, that is approximately $17 billion and $2.3 billion, respectively. In 1965, Supreme Life had assets over $33,000,000 ($251 million inflation adjusted for 2012). Even though black incomes were very low and blacks worked mostly in unskilled labor, black-owned businesses prospered.

These black-owned firms were successful for several reasons. First, legal segregation created a concentrated market free from competition. As such, there was a surge in the 1920s in black entrepreneurship. Second, especially in the North, blacks gained access to manufacturing jobs through the cessation of immigration during World War I. Third, black families epitomized a culture of saving, even more so than white families, making them desired customers. Lastly, it was normal for leaders at Supreme Life and other black firms to maintain relationships with and gain experience working with white business, civic, and religious leaders.

Read more: http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2012/05/30/power-market-driven-diversity

Phumlani M. UMajozi ― Roland Fryer – an inspiration to troubled Black communities

Phumlani M. UMajozi, the South African libertarian writes about Roland G. Fryer, Jr. , the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and the recent recipient of the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal.

                           

He writes: "When the American Economic Association (AEA), the professional body of academic economists in the United States of America, announces the winner of the John Bates Clark Medal each year, acknowledging the “American economist under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge”, the recipient is usually of white race and from privileged background. But in April this year, things were different. The man who won the prize isn’t white, he’s black, and was bred up in the ghettos of Florida and Texas, poor. His name is Roland Gehrard Fryer, Jnr. – a professor of economics at Harvard University. 

At least a week ago, I read a short article by The Economist about his life, I found Fryer’s story very inspiring. The article was published in the midst of chaos in Baltimore. It was a reminder that there are, African-Americans out there, who overcome serious hurdles to succeed in life. It made think profoundly. That I couldn’t wait to write a piece this week to encourage people to familiarize themselves with this blazingly smart human being."

Read more: https://policydebates.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/roland-fryer-an-inspiration-to-troubled-black-communities/

Akil Alleyne ― No, Calling Rioters "Thugs" is not Racist, & other Thoughts on Baltimore

Antonia Okafor ― If Rand Paul were president, I might still have a father

 Antonia is a graduate student at The University of Texas at Dallas and a Republican precinct chair in Denton County, Texas. Follow her on Twitter @antonia_okafor

Antonia Okafor (RL Wright Photography) 

(Rare Magazine)

When I was seven, my father was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He sold drugs and got caught after years of being investigated by the FBI (One count of possession of heroin, one count of conspiracy to distribute).

My mother was indicted as an accessory. For a year, in 1997, she was also in federal prison.
For that year, I had no parents. In the years after, I had no father.

I didn’t realize for a long time just how much growing up without a dad affected me.
When I entered my twenties it hit me like a ton of bricks. Until then, I had focused on other things, appreciating what I had overcome from having a less than perfect childhood.

But I eventually began to realize the heartache of growing up fatherless. It tore my family apart. It seeped like poison into every aspect of my life.

Read more at http://rare.us/story/if-rand-paul-were-president-i-might-still-have-a-father/#CYaRg5woiTXC8sef.99

Walter E. Williams ― Motivations of the Entrepreneur

Akil Alleyne ― Most Americans think gov't doesn't subsidize their health insurance

BALTIMORE BURNING! Gov Declares State of Emergency

My commentary on the death of Freddie Gray and the ensuing riots in Baltimore.

Dr. C.H.E. Sadaphal ― The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) Debacle

The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2015 is abominable for one distinct reason: In the name of “religious freedom,” it encourages secular bondage.

In 1964, Congress passed the federal Civil Rights Act. This legislation prohibits discrimination in housing and public arenas based upon a multitude of factors, including race, gender, religion, and national origin. Notably, the act does not prohibit discrimination based upon sexual orientation. Decades later, the federal Religious Freedom Restoration of Act of 1993 was declared unconstitutional as it applied to the states. So, individual states are free to pass their own RFRAs. More than a dozen have already done so, including Indiana (this year). However, Indiana did not have to pass the RFRA in order to discriminate against others based on sexual orientation—before the law’s passage, the state was already free to turn a blind eye in the midst of such prejudice. Hence, the actions of Indiana’s legislature took things one step further, resulting in an act that encourages people to discriminate based on religion with the backing of the law.

I am no longer surprised when politicians enact ludicrous laws because politics and politicians have cumulatively reached the apex of idolatry. It is detestable that religion is being fashioned into a tool to serve political ends, and some individuals may even have been deluded into thinking that religion is all about discrimination. Putting the name “religion” on a vile act does not purify it of its malevolence. Politics ought never to set the tone for matters of faith.

Read more at http://www.chesadaphal.com/the-religious-freedom-reformation-act-rfra-debacle/

Akil Alleyne ― Did Lincoln Deserve Credit for Ending Slavery? Actually, Yeah.

The black Libertarian lawyer offers his views on Lincoln's contribution to ending slavery in America. Akil is a graduate of Princeton University and a 2013 graduate of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

Black Libertarian vs. Liberal in student debate

Young Americans for Liberty at San Francisco State University (YAL SFSU), hosted our first student debate at the Jack Adams Hall. The topic was Income Inequality- Causes and Solutions. The founder and President of the YAL SFSU chapter, Niike Andino, took the libertarian position. Simone Radliff, from the Political Science Students Association (PSSA), took the liberal position. If you would like to join our chapter, or participate in a debate, contact our representatives at sfsuyal@gmail.com.

Akil Alleyne ― A Broader Flaw in Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)

The Black libertarian lawyer offers his views on Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). He argues that on top of the discrimination concerns, there's a broader problem with the range of religious liberty granted by Religious Freedom Restoration Acts ("RFRA"s) like Indiana's: they unfairly privilege religious objectors to restrictive laws over secular ones.

Akil is a graduate of Princeton University and a 2013 graduate of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

 

Alyson Hudnall ― The Romance of Capitalism: I, Pencil and the Organic Economy

Remembering John W. Perry

Bios and obtiuaries for John Perry typcially and inaccurately describe him as a man of contradictions. He was a New York City police officer and board member of the Nassau County ACLU. He was a registered Democrat and avowed opponent of the Nanny State. He called himself a libertarian, and opposed the war on drugs. He was both a humanitarian and a rugged indvidiualist. He was an authority figure who nonetheless regularly questioned and stood up to authority. He loved his country but sought out, befriended, and embraced foreigners. He was a patrol cop who assisted in investigating and prosecuting other cops who didn’t play by the rules.

Frankly, I don’t think there’s anything inherently contradictory in any of that. 

Read more at http://www.theagitator.com/2006/09/11/remembering-john-w-perry/

INSURGENT Movie Review

From Eastern Kentucky, I review the second installment of the Divergent film series starring the personable and charming Shailene Woodley. I hate it when women cut their hair, but I enjoyed the movie. Woodley made my eyes watery (for a second).

 

Dr. Adebusuyi Isaac Adeniran ― Travel Costs And Institutional Corruption Cripple Regional Trade In West Africa

The need for a free flow of people, goods, and services is central to economic growth in West Africa. Regional trade is critical for supplying reasonably priced essential goods and creating more jobs for the African people, but the continent lags far behind the rest of the world. One of the key components of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Protocol promises the “free movement of persons and goods,” but despite the official support of 16 member countries, this has been procedurally unattainable in practice. Free trade remains illusory in West Africa.

Despite an average 5.5 percent annual GDP growth in 2014, West African countries are among the poorest in the world — primarily because of their paralyzed trade system. More than 80 percent of trade volume in Africa comes from exporting natural resources to developed economies, but trade between ECOWAS members is minuscule compared to regional trade among those developed nations. Intra-regional trade constitutes 63 percent of total exports in Western European nations, 40 percent within the NAFTA region, and 20 percent within South America’s Mercosur block, trade within ECOWAS only accounts for 9.3 percent of total exports.

Read more here: https://www.atlasnetwork.org/news/article/travel-costs-and-institutional-corruption-cripple-regional-trade-in-west-af