Nathaniel Ward » Statism

Friday Links: How Well Are You Marketing?

Nathaniel Ward — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:33:27 +0000

Loren McDonald asks if e-mail marketers are sending too many messages and offers some ways you can tell if you’re over-sending.
Target Analytics has released its 2011 index of non-profit fundrasing performance, based on 83 organizations. Roger Craver wants to know what these organizations’ direct marketers are doing wrong.
You thought America had a real estate bubble? China’s central planners have built whole cities that now lie empty. Via Tim Cavanaugh.
Dan Mitchell passes on a slightly bawdy joke about unions.
Last but not least, Pierre LeBrun argues that Alex Ovechkin’s diminished numbers this year reflect a player newly committed to team victory over personal success. The Capitals, perhaps not coincidentally, have clinched the Southeast division for the fourth straight year.

Monday Links: Free Enterprise vs. Statism, Beautiful Transit, and Changing Cities

Nathaniel Ward — Mon, 24 May 2010 19:49:46 +0000

Will Adam Smith’s principles prevail? Photo: Wikimedia

The new culture war “is not a fight over guns, gays or abortion,” Arthur Brooks argues, but a battle between free enterprise and statism. Supporters of free enterprise need to make a moral case for their system, he writes, to demonstrate that “earned success” is superior to dependence on government, and not simply hold that free enterprise delivers better material results.

Speaking of dependence on government, the New York Times claims that the insufficiency of one government subsidy, for child care, is driving families onto another government subsidy, welfare. However did people cope before government provided everything?

Renderings of the proposed Purple Line in Maryland show there’s no reason transit has to be ugly (link in PDF). While landscaping may add to the project’s cost, it’s worth remembering that aesthetics matter and that there’s a difference between lowering costs and cutting corners.

The Atlantic is running a special report on the changing American city. Every article is worth a read. Progressives have for too long dominated debates over urban policy; it behooves conservatives to engage this debate head-on and offer real solutions to problems facing cities.

And last but not least, Google has announced it will make its Pac-Man doodle permanently available.

What I’m Reading — July 30th

Nathaniel Ward — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:43:26 +0000

Mark Steyn on the Birthers. “A true conspiracy theorist would surely believe that Obama deliberately started the birth-certificate business in order to make it easier to dismiss his opponents as deranged.”
A Time for Choosing, Redux. “For centrists in both parties the moment has come to decide which side of the public-private divide they want the U.S. and its future workers to be on.”
Can the Fed Prevent Bubbles? The new president of the New York Federal Reserve, Donald Luskin writes, “thinks the Fed should be responsible for identifying and preventing asset-price bubbles. Considering that the Fed’s track record reveals more skill at causing bubbles than preventing them, this is a very dangerous idea.”

What I’m Reading — May 25th

Nathaniel Ward — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:28:08 +0000

Spending Restraint? Never! “The New York Times says tax increases, not fiscal restraint, are the route out of recession. Their reasoning? Government will spend your money better than you will.”
Words of Warning from 1940. Herbert Hoover: “Directly or indirectly they politically controlled credit, prices, production or industry, farmer and laborer. They devalued, pump-primed and deflated. They controlled private business by government competition, by regulation and by taxes. They met every failure with demands for more and more power and control.”
E.J. Dionne on Obama’s Goals. Can President Obama create a new “centrist” alliance? And can a program really be called centrist if its principal aims are to make everyone more dependent on government?
Useful tips for writing subject lines.