Richard J Grant

Published in The Tennessean , October 23, 2008 Government has caused this panic By Richard J. Grant Are you worried about your portfolio allocations? Are you worried about the value of your home? Then you should worry about the value of your home's home. If you live near me, that means the USA. It seems fairly easy to teach people how to handle their portfolios. But many still panic when the markets turn down, and they suffer for it. By contrast, it is far more difficult to teach people how to take care of their country. But when they panic at election time, we all suffer. Too many people believe all the current nonsense about "market failure" or the "failure of capitalism." Educational failure would be closer to the mark. The cause of the current financial panic is the many years of government interference in our businesses and private lives. At best, when government takes our resources, it gives us services worth about half what the private sector would have g...

Published in The Tennessean , September 23, 2008 Government handouts cost more in long run By RICHARD J. GRANT In every country where government has tried to run the economy, the results have been poverty and oppression. Do our political leaders believe they can do better? They have done many dumb things on our behalf and, as a result, we are poorer and less free than we could, and should, be. By world standards, we are still the biggest and most powerful. But that is to damn ourselves with faint praise. The world can overtake us if we forget who we are. Many Americans have forgotten, or never learned, that U.S. prosperity grew in a historic oasis of economic freedom, constitutionally preserved by the Founding Fathers. And prosperity will fade away when our freedoms are taken away. When politicians pander to the most gullible among us by offering "bailouts" and "stimulus" packages, we must know that the deal is rigged against us. In seeking something for nothing, we...