You Don't Have to Yell

“Para inglês ver” (“for the English to see”) is a phrase commonly used in Brazil to describe a tradition of policies designed to make the country seem attractive to foreigners, while not addressing the problem these policies set out to solve on paper. It traces its roots back to a treaty signed...

In this month's series on the national debt, I've come to three conclusions: When governments default, it's really, really bad. When governments choose to divert money away from investing for the future to pay down debt, it's really, really bad. When governments issue debt in the currency they...

For many Americans, the national debt is an item that poses serious concerns about the nation’s ability to fund its military, infrastructure, and social programs over the long term. To others, it’s like America’s obesity problem – sure, the number keeps going up and that’s probably not good, but...

When Ronald Reagan first took office in 1981, America’s chief rival was the Soviet Union - a godless military juggernaut lead by a plucky troupe of septuagenarians intent on freeing the workers of the world from the shackles of capitalism via a mix of forced labor and harsh autocratic rule. I’m...

There’s an African Proverb that reads, “If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm.” If we apply the above to the United States, you could interpret it to mean a dysfunctional government lead by an incompetent president, a competent president thwarted by a dysfunctional...

Depending on who you ask, the goal of gun control laws is either to minimize the number of unnecessary gun deaths by keeping firearms out of the hands of the wrong people, or the first step towards state control over every aspect of our personal lives. Based on the above description, the...

For this week's episode of You Don't Have to Yell, the Data Monkey and I dove into what the numbers tell us about gun ownership. While some of those numbers were unsurprising, what was interesting was where both gun owners and non-owners agreed on the best ways to reduce gun crime and how effective...

Tell me if you've heard this one before: Irish guy moved from Dublin to Oklahoma to be with his wife, finds himself totally disgusted with the quality of meat products there, so he buys an AR-15 so he can go out hunting and kill his own. If you haven't, then this week's episode of You Don't Have to...

Depending on who you ask, the Second Amendment is either an anachronism from a time when most gun owners were farmers with muskets, or a clause that safeguards my right to walk into a Pizza Hut with an AK-47. Both pro and anti-gun activists are so far apart on this issue, there’s only one thing...

A few years back, I used to fly between Boston and Dublin, Ireland for work, and became intimately acquainted with Aer Lingus’ transatlantic in-flight service. They served a meal on the flight, which was either beef stroganoff or chicken curry. While I’m sure there were people on the plane who...