Something as simple as the concept of tradeoffs can cause cognitive dissonance to good-hearted people who want too hard to drive the society toward their perception of the good.

A nice illustration of that is the cost in lives of making cars that use less gasoline. How can doing good for the environment possibly be harmful? Oh, it can be deadly.

Nicely illustrated by CEI’s Sam Kazman on John Stossel’s show.

2,000 Deaths per Year … for the Environment is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• One thing is clear after President Obama’s speech yesterday: He envisions a smaller national debt, but a much bigger government.
• One percent is better than nothing, but it’s still pretty close to nothing.
• One thing is clear about climate change: it’s causing a rising tide of red ink in Washington. See the forthcoming book Climate Coup: Global Warming’s Invasion of Our Government and Our Lives and join us for the accompanying book forum, featuring MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen and American Meteorological Society fellow Bob Ryan, on Wednesday, May 4 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Complimentary registration is required of all attendees by 12:00 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, May 3. If you cannot join us in person, we hope you’ll watch live online.
• One cannot be serious about reining in reckless spending without putting the Pentagon on the chopping block.
• One need not look very far to see how similar Republicans and Democrats are:

Thursday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

On September 3 John Stossel’s Fox Business show took an unsparing look at the seldom-criticized Americans with Disabilities Act on its 20th anniversary (I was a guest commentator during part of the show, including this segment.) Now the American Association of Persons with Disabilities has reacted with outrage and urged its constituents to fire off protest letters to Stossel, to Fox, and also to me since my criticisms of the law were featured on the show.

But it didn’t play fair. In a related syndicated column, after recounting some of the abuses and excesses associated with ADA litigation — including settlement mills that file assembly-line suits against Main Street businesses and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission demands that alcoholics in rehab be put back on safety-sensitive jobs — Stossel says prolonged litigation over such matters means “more money for the parasites”. Harsh words, perhaps, but in context he’s clearly referring to those who profit from ADA litigation, and in particular opportunistic lawyers.

Now observe how the AAPD edits his words. By cutting most of what precedes “more money for the parasites,” it encourages readers to assume that Stossel is somehow referring to disabled persons themselves as parasites. And in case readers don’t pick up on that implication, AAPD makes it explicit: Stossel, it charges, “sees people with disabilities as manipulative parasites.” For the past day, disabled persons have been dashing off furious emails to Stossel (and cc’ing them to me) on variations of the theme, “How dare you call me a parasite!?”

But that’s not what he said. And AAPD owes both its readers and Stossel an apology for pretending otherwise. There’s nothing wrong with having a public debate over the ADA, but wouldn’t it be more constructive to respond to what Stossel actually did argue?

John Stossel, the ADA, and the Art of Selective Outrage is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

I’m a guest on tonight’s John Stossel program on the Fox Business Network, on the subject of the consequences of the twenty-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The show was shot live to tape yesterday in New York and was fascinating throughout; even those who think they know this subject well will learn a lot. I’m also quoted in John’s latest syndicated column on the same issue.

Among the highlights of the taping: a disabled-rights lobbyist defended several extreme applications of the law, including the notion that it might be appropriate to force networks to hire someone who suffers from stuttering as on-air television talent. We also shed some light on the state of California’s up-to-$4,000-a-violation bounty system for freelancers who identify ADA violations in Main Street businesses, and the case for at least requiring complainants to give business owners notice and an opportunity to fix an ADA violation before suing. (The disabled-rights lobby has managed to stifle that proposal in Congress for years.) Also mentioned: the suit against the Chipotle restaurant chain recently covered in this space.

Other recent coverage of the ADA here and here.

On Tonight’s John Stossel Show (FBN) is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

John Stossel, usually seen on Fox Business Network, will have a special on the Fox News Channel this weekend, well targeted to Independence Day: “What’s Great about America.” He’ll interview Dinesh D’Souza and immigrant businessmen, among others.

Saturday and Sunday, 9 p.m. ET both nights. Fox News is on lots more cable systems than Fox Business, so if you don’t get Fox Business, this is your chance to see Stossel.

Tonight at 9 p.m., I think it’s a rerun of his recent show on Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, featuring . . . me. Along with Johan Norberg, Tom Palmer, and Bob Chitester.

For some of my own thoughts on what’s great about America, see this article.

Stossel on Fox News Channel: What’s Great about America is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

John Stossel’s weekly show has a new time: 9 p.m. and midnight every Thursday on the Fox Business Network, plus Fridays at 10 p.m., Saturdays at 9 p.m. and 12 midnight, and Sundays at 10 p.m. (Don’t get Fox Business? Tell your cable company you want Stossel!)

On this week’s show Stossel will interview 76-year-old Otis McDonald about his lawsuit seeking the right to protect himself with a gun, which is now before the Supreme Court. He’ll also talk to John Lott about the new edition of his book More Guns, Less Crime.

While you’re waiting for Thursday night, check out Stossel’s show on Milton Friedman, which featured interviews with Johan Norberg, Tom Palmer, and me. Or indeed his classic ABC special on politics and limited government, where I got even more air time!

Stossel: New Topic, New Time is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Tom Palmer, Johan Norberg, and I are among the guests tonight on Stossel on the Fox Business Network. John Stossel interviews us all about the work and impact of Milton Friedman, especially his book Free to Choose, published 30 years ago. Political theorist Benjamin Barber provides the anti-Friedman counterpoint.

Watch Stossel Thursdays at 8 p.m. and 12 midnight, Saturdays at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., and Sundays at 10 p.m. (all times eastern).

Stossel Tonight! is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Cato senior fellow Tom Palmer and friends Don Boudreaux and June Arunga debate free trade with the legendary Lou Dobbs around John Stossel’s anchor desk on tonight’s edition of “Stossel.” 8:00 p.m. and midnight EDT on the Fox Business Network.

Stossel’s weekly column also interviews Tom Palmer.

Tonight on Stossel: Taking on Lou Dobbs is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Don’t miss “Stossel” tonight on the Fox Business Network at 8:00 p.m. ET. He’ll be discussing “What’s a Libertarian?” with P. J. O’Rourke, Andrew Napolitano, and a panel including Cato senior fellow Jeff Miron and me. Here’s a column Stossel wrote after taping the show about his own evolution from “Kennedy-style liberal” to libertarian.

When I did talk shows after the publication of Libertarianism: A Primer, I was always asked, “What is libertarianism?” I said then, “Libertarianism is the idea that adult individuals have the right and the responsibility to make the important decisions about their lives. And of course today government claims the power to make many of those decisions for us, from where to send our kids to school to what we can smoke to how we must save for retirement.”

Here’s another way to put it, which I believe I first saw in a high-school libertarian newsletter from Minnesota: Smokey the Bear’s rules for fire safety also apply to government: Keep it small, keep it in a confined area, and keep an eye on it.

For more on libertarianism, check out Libertarianism: A Primer and The Libertarian Reader. For deeper thoughts, take a look at Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice. Find an 80-minute interview on libertarianism here and a short talk here. And for a week-long seminar on libertarianism and our current crisis, come to Cato University this July at the beautiful Rancho Bernardo Inn outside San Diego.

John Stossel on Libertarianism is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Last week I was on John Stossel’s (most excellent) new show on Fox Business News to discuss energy policy — in particular, popular myths that Republicans have about energy markets.  One of the topics I touched upon was nuclear power.  My argument was the same that I have offered in print: Nuclear power is a swell technology but, given the high construction costs associated with building nuclear reactors, it’s a technology that cannot compete in free markets without a massive amount of government support.  If one believes in free markets, then one should look askance at such policies. 

As expected, the atomic cult has taken offense. 

Now, it is reasonable to argue that excessive regulatory oversight has driven up the cost of nuclear power and that a “better” regulatory regime would reduce costs.  Perhaps.  But I have yet to see any concrete accounting of exactly which regulations are “bad” along with associated price tags for the same.  If anyone out there in Internet-land has access to a good, credible accounting like that, please, send it my way.  But until I see something tangible, what we have here is assertion masquerading as fact.

Most of those who consider themselves “pro-nuke” are unaware of the fact that the current federal regulatory regime was thoroughly reformed in the late 1990s to comport with the industry’s model of what a “good” federal regulatory regime would look like.  As Oliver Kingsley Jr., the President of Exelon Nuclear, put it in Senate testimony back in 2001:

The current regulatory environment has become more stable, timely, and predictable, and is an important contributor to improved performance of nuclear plants in the United States.  This means that operators can focus more on achieving operational efficiencies and regulators can focus more on issues of safety significance.  It is important to note that safety is being maintained and, in fact enhanced, as these benefits of regulatory reform are being realized.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission — and this Subcommittee — can claim a number of successes in their efforts to improve the nuclear regulatory environment.  These include successful implementation of the NRC Reactor Oversight Process, the timely extension of operating licenses at Calvert Cliffs and Oconee, the establishment of a one-step licensing process for advanced reactors, the streamlining of the license transfer process, and the increased efficiency in processing licensing actions.

It’s certainly possible that the industry left some desirable reforms undone, but it seems relevant to me that the Nuclear Energy Institute — the trade association for the nuclear energy industry and a fervent supporter of all these government assistance programs — does not complain that they’re being unfairly hammered by costly red-tape.

For the most part, however, the push-back against the arguments I offered last week has little to do with this.  It has to do with bias.  According to a post by Rod Adams over at “Atomic Insights Blog,” I am guilty of ignoring subsidies doled-out to nuclear’s biggest competitor — natural gas — and because Cato gets money from Koch Industries, it’s clear that my convenient neglect of that matter is part of a corporate-funded attack on nuclear power.  Indeed, Mr. Adams claims that he has unearthed a “smoking gun” with this observation.

Normally, I would ignore attacks like this.  This particular post, however, offers the proverbial “teachable moment” that should not be allowed to go to waste.

First, let’s look at the substance of the argument.  Did I “give natural gas a pass” as Mr. Adams contends? Well, yes and no; the show was about the cost of nuclear power, not the cost of natural gas.  I did note that natural gas-fired electricity was more attractive in this economic environment than nuclear power, something that happens to be true.  Had John Stossel asked me about whether gas’ economic advantage was due to subsidy, I would have told him that I am against natural gas subsidies as well — a position I have staked-out time and time again in other venues (while there are plenty of examples, this piece I co-authored with Daniel Becker — then of the Sierra Club — for The Los Angeles Times represents my thinking on energy subsidies across the board.  A blog post a while back about the Democratic assault on oil and gas subsidies found me arguing that the D’s should actually go further!  Dozens of other similar arguments against fossil fuel subsidies can be found on my publications page).  So let’s dispose of Mr. Adams’ implicit suggestion that I am some sort of tool for the oil and gas industry, arguing against subsidies here but not against subsidies there.

Second, let’s consider the implicit assertion that Mr. Adams makes — that natural gas-fired electricity is more attractive than nuclear power primarily because of subsidy.  The most recent and thorough assessment of this matter comes from Prof. Gilbert Metcalf, an economist at Tufts University.  Prof. Metcalf agrees with a 2004 report from the Energy Information Administration which contended that preferences for natural gas production in the tax code do little to increase natural gas production and thus do little to make natural gas less expensive than it might otherwise be.  They are wealth transfers for sure, but they do not do much to change natural gas supply or demand curves and thus do not affect consumer prices.  Prof. Metcalf argues that if we had truly level regulatory playing field without any tax distortions, natural gas-fired electricity would actually go down, not up!  Government intervention in energy markets does indeed distort gas-fired electricity prices.  It makes those prices higher than they otherwise would be!

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) identified five natural gas subsidies in 2007 that were relevant to the electricity sector (table 5).  Only two are of particular consequence.  They are:

• Expensing of Exploration and Development Costs – Gas producers are allowed to expense exploration and development expenditures rather than capitalize and depreciate those costs over time.  Oil and gas producers (combined) took advantage of this tax break to the tune of $860 million per year.  How much goes to gas production rather than to oil production is unclear.
• Excess of Percentage over Cost Depletion Deferral – Under cost depletion, producers are allowed to make an annual deduction equal to the non-recovered cost of acquisition and development of the resource times the proportion of the resource removed that year.  Under percentage depletion, producers deduct a percentage of gross income from resource production.  Oil and gas producers (combined) take advantage of this tax break to the tune of $790 million per year.  How much goes to gas production rather than to oil production is unclear. 

Even if we put aside the fact that these subsidies don’t impact final consumer prices in any significant manner, it’s useful to keep in mind the fact that the subsidy per unit of gas-fired electricity production — as calculated by EIA — works out to 25 cents per megawatt hour (table 35).  Subsidy per unit of nuclear-fired electricity production works out to $1.59 per megawatt hour.  Hence, the argument that nuclear subsidies are relatively small in comparison with natural gas subsidies is simply incorrect.

Some would argue that the Foreign Tax Credit — a generally applicable credit available to corporations doing business overseas that allows firms to treat royalty payments to foreign governments as a tax that can be deducted from domestic corporate income taxes — should likewise be on the subsidy list.  The Environmental Law Institute calculates that this credit saves the fossil fuel industry an additional $15.3 billion.  There is room for debate about the wisdom of that credit, but regardless, it doesn’t appear as if the Foreign Tax Credit affects domestic U.S. prices for gas-fired electricity.     

The bigger point is that without government help, few doubt that the natural gas industry would still be humming and electricity would still be produced in large quantities from gas-fired generators.  But without government production subsidies, without loan guarantees, and without liability protection via the Price-Anderson Act, even the nuclear power industry concedes that they would disappear.

Now, to be fair, Prof. Metcalf reports that nuclear power is cheaper than gas-fired power under both current law and under a no-subsidy, no-tax regime.  His calculations, however, were made at a time when natural gas prices were at near historic highs that were thought to be the new norm in energy markets and were governed by fairly optimistic assumptions about nuclear power plant construction costs.  Those assumptions have not held-up well with time.  For a more recent assessment, see my review of this issue in Reasonalong with this study from MIT, which warns that if more government help isn’t forthcoming, “nuclear power will diminish as a practical and timely option for deployment at a scale that would constitute a material contribution to climate change risk mitigation.”

Third, Mr. Adams argues that federal nuclear loan guarantee program is a self-evidently good deal and implies that only an anti-industry agitprop specialist (like me) could possibly refuse to see that.  “That program, with its carefully designed and implemented due diligence requirements for project viability, should actually produce revenue for the government.”  Funny, but when private investors perform those due diligence exercises, they come to a very different conclusion … which is why we have a federal loan guarantee program in the first place. 

Who do you trust to watch over your money — investment bankers or Uncle Sam?  The former don’t have the best track record in the world these days, but note that the popular indictment of that crowd is that investment banks weren’t tight fisted enough when it came to lending.  If even these guys were saying no to nuclear power — and at a time when money was flowing free and easy — what makes Mr. Adams think that a bunch of politicians are right about the glorious promise of nuclear power, particularly given the “too cheap to meter” rhetoric we’ve heard from the political world now for the better part of five decades? 

Anyway, for what it’s worth, the Congressional Budget Office has taken a close look at this alleged bonanza for the taxpayer and judged the risk of default on these loan guarantees to be around 50 percent.  They may be wrong of course, but the risks are there, something Moody’s acknowledged last year in a published analysis warning that they were likely to downgrade the credit-worthiness of nuclear power plant construction loans.

Fourth and finally, Mr. Adams cites Cato’s skepticism about “end-is-near” climate alarmism as yet more evidence that we are on the take from the fossil fuels industry.  I don’t know if Mr. Adams has been following current events lately, but I would think that we’re looking pretty good right now on that front.  Der Spiegel — no hot-bed of “Big Oil” agitprop — sums up the state of the debate rather nicely in the wake of the ongoing collapse of IPCC credibility.  Matt Ridley — another former devotee of climate alarmism — likewise sifts through the rubble that is now the infamous Michael Mann “hockey stick” analysis (which allegedly demonstrated an unprecedented degree of warming in the 20th Century) and finds thorough and total rot at the heart of the alarmist argument.  Mr. Adams is perhaps unaware that our own Pat Michaels has been making these arguments for years and Cato has no apologies to make on that score. 

Regardless, ad hominem is the sign of a man running out of arguments.  There aren’t many here to rebut, but the form of the complaints offered by Mr. Adams speaks volumes about how little the pro-nuclear camp has to offer right now in defense of nuclear power subsidies.

I have no animus towards nuclear power per se.  If nuclear power could compete without government help, I would be as happy as Mr. Adams or the next MIT nuclear engineer.  But I am no more “pro” nuclear power than I am “pro” any power.  It is not for me to pick winners in the market place.  That’s the invisible hand’s job.  If there is bad regulation out there harming the industry, then by all means, let’s see a list of said bad regulations and amend them accordingly.  But once those regulations are amended (if there are indeed any that need amending), nuclear power should still be subject to an unbiased market test.  Unlike Mr. Adams, I don’t want to see that test rigged.

Atomic Dreams is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

That’s the question that John Stossel will be asking Thursday night to a motley collection of guests, including P. J. O’Rourke, Andrew Napolitano, Jeffrey Miron, and me. Tune in the Fox Business Network at 8:00 p.m. ET.

It repeats many times, as noted here, but you know, it’s like the NCAA championship: you don’t want to watch the repeat on ESPN Classic, you want to watch it live with everyone else for the collective experience. So be there at 8:00 Thursday.

Or of course you could just read Libertarianism: A Primer and The Libertarian Reader.

What’s a Libertarian? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

In Sunday’s “Pearls Before Swine” comic strip, the nefarious Rat is now a PR flak. And when his client accidentally blows up downtown, he comes up with a solid economic defense:

Go here for Frederic Bastiat’s original explication of the “broken window fallacy,” and for way too much detail, go to Wikipedia. John Stossel breaks some windows here and talks to Walter Williams about the implications.

Rat Falls Back on the Broken Window Fallacy is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Bill O’Reilly teases an interview with John Stossel this way:

Should Americans be able to use their body for any purpose? John Stossel says yes and joins us to explain!

And Bill O’Reilly says no! No to legal prostitution, no to polygamy, no even to legal markets for vitally needed organs. Check it out:

More Stossel videos on personal freedom here. Cato research on organ markets here. And don’t forget to watch John Stossel every Thursday night at 8 on the Fox Business Network.

O’Reilly: No Freedom, No How is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Although some comparisons between Haiti’s 7.0 earthquake in January and Chile’s 8.8 quake this weekend have attributed the massive differences in devastation and lives lost (230,000 vs. some 700 respectively) to different enforcement of building codes and planning, the real reason for Chile’s superior ability to endure the disaster has everything to do with its vastly higher level of economic freedom, reliable rule of law, and the much higher level of prosperity that results. Here are three good articles that make those points:

Bret Stephens on “How Milton Friedman Saved Chile”

John Stossel on “A Tale of Two Quakes”

Anne Applebaum, “Chile and Haiti: A Look at Earthquakes and Politics”

And here’s a piece I wrote on Haiti explaining how economic freedom could have dramatically reduced death and destruction there.

Earthquakes and Freedom: Chile vs. Haiti is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The District of Columbia spent over $28,000 per pupil in the 2008-09 school year. This year is probably similar. So why does (almost) everyone still claim the figure is around half that much? John Stossel has a good summary here.

If you’d like all the gory details, drawn from the official DC budget documents and the District’s own audited enrollment figures, then have a look at this Excel spreadsheet file.

I’m happy to go over the calculation with any DC or DCPS official — or journalist — who would care to dispute it. (It’s only been challenged once before, and the official in question fell silent after seeing the spreadsheet.)

Isn’t it about time that the local media start telling it like it is, and acknowledge that the District of Columbia spends four times as much per pupil as local voucher-receiving private schools charge in tuition ($6,620), while still getting worse academic results?

Do You Still Think DC Spends Only $15,000/Pupil? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Tomorrow night at 8:00pm, Fox Business News will air a John Stossel special on the failures of state-run schooling and the merits of parental choice and competition in education. I make an appearance, as do Jeanne Allen and James Tooley.

News of the show is already making the rounds, and over at DemocraticUnderground.com, one poster is very upset about it, writing:

When will these TRAITORS stop trying to ruin this country?

HOW can AMERICANS be AGAINST public education?

Stossel is throwing out every right-wing argument possible in his namby pamby singsong way while he “interviews” a “panel” of people (who I suspect are plants) saying things like preschool is a waste of money and why invest in an already-failing system….

I hate Stossel and I hate all of those who think the way he does.

This poster goes by the screen name “Live Love Laugh.” I guess there wasn’t enough space to tack “Hate” onto the end.

What this poster–and many good people on the American left–have yet to grasp is that critics of state monopoly schooling are NOT against public education. On the contrary, it is our commitment to the ideals of public education that compels us to pursue them by the most effective means possible, and to abandon the system that has proven itself, over many many generations, incapable of fulfilling them. I wrote about this crucial point more than a decade ago in Education Week, in a piece titled: “Are Public Schools Hazardous to Public Education.”

Fortunately, a small but steadily growing number of American liberals have already grasped this pivotal difference between means and ends, as the growing Democratic support for Florida’s school choice tax credit program evinces. Giving all families, particularly low income families, an easier choice between state-run and independent schools is the best way to advance the ideals of public education.

A Severe Irony Deficiency is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

As I hope you know by now, John Stossel is on the Fox Business Network every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Don’t miss it. But if you do, there are rebroadcasts at 10 p.m. Friday, 7 p.m. Saturday, and 11 p.m. Sunday.

But some people complain that their local cable station doesn’t carry the Fox Business Network. Well, contact them and tell them you want Stossel! (I’ll wait while you do that.) And now, since the cable company won’t add the network instantly, you should also know that clips and full shows are also available at Hulu.com. Just go to http://www.hulu.com/stossel for lots of recent shows — on health care, global warming, Ayn Rand, Whole Foods, and more.

Stossel on Demand is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Yes, folks, it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: John Stossel launches his new weekly show on the Fox Business Network Thursday evening at 8 p.m. (Even though the vaunted Fox News machine can’t seem to put a notice about it on their website, I have it on good authority that the show will go on!) Rumor is he’ll be talking about Ayn Rand on the first show. It’s a good time for a show about freedom and limited government — as the Baltimore Sun says, “Stossel’s new show should have no trouble finding an audience of viewers eager for a discussion about the pedal-to-the-metal pace of expansion [of government] since Barack Obama took office.”

Some people ask, Why give up ABC for the smaller Fox networks? (Presumably, these are not the same people who asked Stossel for years, “Why don’t you go to Fox?  They’d love you there.”) The good news is that now Stossel has an hour a week to talk about freedom — as well as appearances on other Fox shows such as Beck and O’Reilly. His hour-long specials at ABC were excellent, and drew solid ratings, but ABC hasn’t put one on in more than a year. And even his “Give Me a Break” segments on 20/20 had become rare. So what’s the point in being part of a big but declining network that isn’t actually interested in serious political commentary? Now he’s on a smaller but growing network that wants him to do 44 hours of pointed commentary and analysis, plus contribute to other shows.

If you haven’t seen Stossel’s ABC specials, you need to. I can never decide which one I think is best. Of course, I’m partial to “John Stossel’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics,” in which I get a bit of screen time. But “Greed,” with Walter Williams, David Kelley, and Ted Turner, is great, too. And so is “Is America #1?,” featuring Tom Palmer. But there were plenty of others — “Stupid in America,” “Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?,” “John Stossel Goes to Washington,” “Sex, Lies, and Consenting Adults.”

You can view some of them, including “Is America #1?,” at a website called Freedom Channel. And for the time being, at least, you can still watch lots of shorter Stossel videos at ABC News.

But meanwhile — tell your mama, tell your pa, to watch “Stossel” this Thursday at 8 p.m. on Fox Business Channel. And note: it will repeat at 10 p.m. Friday, giving you a chance to show ABC what they lost by watching “Stossel” instead of “20/20.”

It’s Stossel Thursday is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• Michael Tanner on the Obama health care speech: All sizzle, no substance.

• Why Main Street should embrace globalization. Plus, why international trade doesn’t cause unemployment at home.

• Should the IRS have the right to share your tax information with foreign governments? How about totalitarian ones? It may not be so far off.

• Libertarian news anchor John Stossel leaving ABC for Fox.

• Podcast- Obama: Hey, lets force everyone to have insurance, and fine Americans who don’t comply.

Thursday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Appearing on the “Glenn Beck Program” with ABC’s John Stossel, Cato H.L. Mencken research fellow Penn Jillete discusses his views on health care reform, the nanny state, Canada and more.

Penn Jillette on Health Care Reform is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog