American Consequences

P. J. O’Rourke

April 2019

Trick Quiz

By P.J. O’Rourke For 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Where Will the Money Come From?  The big, unruly crowd of would-be Democratic presidential candidates is engaged in a free-for-all. Literally. They’re fighting to see who can promise the...

April 2019

Committee Brain

Why Government Doesn’t Work, No Matter Who Runs It By P.J. O’Rourke Lesson II The other reason government will always malfunction – besides the logical impossibility of sensible spending – has to do with a politician’s brain. “What brain...

April 2019

Dumb Money

Why Government Doesn’t Work, No Matter Who Runs It By P.J. O’Rourke Lesson I In 1980, Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and his equally brilliant economist wife Rose produced a 10-part PBS series and an accompanying book about the...

April 2019

The Big Ugly

Everyone Loses In The Zero-sum Game Called Politics Letter from the Editor: Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke For people like me who consider themselves to be libertarian, the 35-day “government shutdown” at the beginning of this year was a real be...

March 2019

A Libertarian Looks at Legalization

“I am never sure I’ve handled a subject properly till I have contradicted myself at least three times.” John Ruskin By P.J. O’Rourke What should politics, government, and law have to do with people taking drugs for fun? Sitting on my shoulder is a...

March 2019

Grass Roots

What the 21st-Century Drug Culture Can Learn From the Drug Culture of the 1960s Letter from the Editor: Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke “If you can remember the ‘60s, you weren’t there” is a quote variously attributed to Grace Slick, Dennis Hopper...

February 2019

Sympathy Versus Empathy

By P.J. O’Rourke There’s a difference between sympathy and empathy – the difference between understanding what others feel and feeling what they feel. Whether you’re sympathetic or empathetic can make a big difference in business. (And, of course...

February 2019

Learning to Love Our Emotions

Starting With ‘Greed’ and ‘Fear’ Letter from the Editor: Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke It’s an old Wall Street saying: “Markets are driven by greed and fear.” If so, markets are a sort of one-man full-court basketball game...

January 2019

Trade Routes

By P.J. O’Rourke The definition of a free-market trade: Each party gives something he or she values less in return for something he or she values more, and both parties benefit. This issue of American Consequences is (mostly) about those benefits...

January 2019

The Bet

How Julian Simon Revealed the Earth’s Most Valuable (and Abundant) Natural Resource… And How Paul Ehrlich Wanted to Get Rid of It By P.J. O’Rourke All trade depends on natural resources – the stuff with which goods are made and services are...