Category: From the Editor
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Staatspolizei
By Evelyn Pyburn It is unspeakable, the assault on Montana’s small business owners that the Governor is perpetrating in what has to be the most disrespectful attack on citizens ever seen in this state. For going on nine months now, small business owners of every size and industry have been struggling mightily to keep their…
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What it Takes
By Evelyn Pyburn Shortly after the break-up of the Soviet Union, I read about how the US was sending advisors to Russia to tell them how to do it – how to build an economy. One was left to assume that meant a free market economy, but when one saw who all was involved, it…
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Pursuing a Lose-Lose Strategy
By Evelyn Pyburn It’s a sad lesson of life, but there is always those among us who strive every day to acquire the unearned. In my world, that is the real definition of greed – much more so than people working hard to make money. The reach for the unearned is seen all around us,…
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No Account of Human Nature
By Evelyn Pyburn The official status of COVID in Montana, as of last weekend was 7,063 confirmed cases and deaths hit 100 with 242,875 people having been tested. That means that of those people who have tested positive with the disease 98.6 percent have survived, but what is the survival rate of all the people…
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Time to Pay Up
By Evelyn Pyburn Over the years as a reporter and learning about economics, early on I became alarmed at the rate and intrusiveness of regulations. As I came to understand the depth and breadth of regulations on business, I failed to understand, not only the acceptance of them but the often enthusiastic embracing of them,…
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The Use of Force
By Evelyn Pyburn There is lot’s not being said about all that is happening. Despite what is claimed, COVID-19 is a political issue. When political power is brought to bear on any issue it is political. It becomes political in that moment. One must remember that politics is about the use of force. When people…
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A Matter of Life & Death
By Evelyn Pyburn The one thing the coronavirus crisis has surely demonstrated is how many people have no understanding about the economy and no respect for the role it plays in our lives – no respect for those who make it work. We are very much reaping the disaster of generations of limited economic education…
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Hope for the Future
By Evelyn Pyburn Did you know that one of the reasons for the shortage of the COVID-19 test kits was that, not only did the CDC, a large purchaser in the market, restrict their purchases to one company, but they eventually imposed a law on the private sector that basically made it illegal for any…
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Panic Has a Price
By Evelyn Pyburn The coronavirus is a scary thing. Not so much because of the threat of the disease but for the demonstration of how easily an entire population can be whipped into hysteria that far exceeds the reality of a threat. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has called the panic “dumb.” And, it…
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Ice Walls Protect Ocean
Science News reports that ice walls along the outer edge of coastal glaciers help protect inland ice from warm ocean currents. The report says that “… while Antarctica’s coastal glaciers have experienced accelerating melt rates over the last few decades, the continent’s interior ice remains relatively stable.” This stability isn’t well understood. Using data collected…