Jeffrey Tucker
AIER Editorial Director – 2017-2021
Jeffrey A. Tucker served as Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research from 2017 to 2021.
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American Pianos Vanished but the Music Didn’t Die
The years between 1890 and the Second World War were the golden age of the American piano. Pianos were the biggest-ticket item on every household budget besides the house itself. Everyone had to have one. Those who didn’t have one aspired to have one. It was a prize, an essential part of life, and they…
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The Financial Crisis, Ten Years On
It was this time ten years ago that people started to catch on that something was going wrong. Home prices stopped rising, many were falling, the flipping schemes were dying out, and default notices were being posted for smaller banking houses. Could it be that the entire glory days of the spectacular increases in home…
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Personal Animus Should Have No Bearing on the Legality of the Travel Ban
As much as I do not want to admit it, it would be precisely right for the court to decide that Trump’s campaign statements should have no bearing on the legality or illegality of his executive order. It is not up to the courts to assess the motivations for what we do, much less to…
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These Drinking-Age Crackdowns Are Not Helping
The choice between virtue and vice is a human choice. Relying on the government to make this choice for us disables the social order’s internal mechanisms for bringing about and rewarding responsible behavior. It seems like a paradox, but it is true: The only path toward restoring sanity in teenage drinking is greater liberty. Arresting…
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The Amazing Influence of Henry George (on E.C. Harwood)
Just as humanity saw the first glimmer of the hope of universal human prosperity, prevailing ruling-class opinion turned against the idea and pushed a host of nostrums to stop it from happening. Here was where Henry George made the difference. He entered into this milieu with a powerful message: prosperity for the entire world is…
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The Perfect Book to Lift Your Spirits
What is the point of adopting a fact-based worldview? Rosling says that it is essential so that we can better navigate life, the way a GPS helps us navigate a city. Further, knowing the facts about life around us brings us more comfort. We are less alarmed at the news. We are less likely to…
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China’s Communism That Is Not
Even as the US is pulling inward, demonizing foreign nations, calling everyone in the world a cheater, China is aggressively opening to the world, negotiating bilateral trade pacts with every nation it can and another 14 multilateral trade pacts. More goods and investment coming and going – this seems to be the Chinese credo. It…
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How Not to Reform Tax Filing
What Elizabeth Warren intends is to make the highwayman rob you in your sleep, so that you never know he is there and come to expect less ownership in the morning than when you went to bed. Her proposed change to tax filing would diminish property rights, make tax increases easier, reduce your privacy, and…
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Thus Does the Crypto Winter Endeth
There will be another winter. And another. To get the best sense of the potential here, it’s best to look at the price, not day to day, but on a logarithmic scale. Here is where we can see the potential of the technology. That has a much more meaningful significance than the fickle judgments of…
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Facebook Hearings Reveal How Government Regulations Work
Right now, Facebook faces massive competition from other platforms in social media, copycats, and alternative uses of people’s time. In some ways, it’s the best possible moment to call on government to institutionalize Facebook as a form of public utility. That might actually be the end game that Zuckerberg has in mind. Then the politicians…
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•
American Pianos Vanished but the Music Didn’t Die
The years between 1890 and the Second World War were the golden age of the American piano. Pianos were the biggest-ticket item on every household budget besides the house itself. Everyone had to have one. Those who didn’t have one aspired to have one. It was a prize, an essential part of life, and they…
-
•
The Financial Crisis, Ten Years On
It was this time ten years ago that people started to catch on that something was going wrong. Home prices stopped rising, many were falling, the flipping schemes were dying out, and default notices were being posted for smaller banking houses. Could it be that the entire glory days of the spectacular increases in home…
-
•
Personal Animus Should Have No Bearing on the Legality of the Travel Ban
As much as I do not want to admit it, it would be precisely right for the court to decide that Trump’s campaign statements should have no bearing on the legality or illegality of his executive order. It is not up to the courts to assess the motivations for what we do, much less to…
-
•
These Drinking-Age Crackdowns Are Not Helping
The choice between virtue and vice is a human choice. Relying on the government to make this choice for us disables the social order’s internal mechanisms for bringing about and rewarding responsible behavior. It seems like a paradox, but it is true: The only path toward restoring sanity in teenage drinking is greater liberty. Arresting…
-
•
The Amazing Influence of Henry George (on E.C. Harwood)
Just as humanity saw the first glimmer of the hope of universal human prosperity, prevailing ruling-class opinion turned against the idea and pushed a host of nostrums to stop it from happening. Here was where Henry George made the difference. He entered into this milieu with a powerful message: prosperity for the entire world is…
-
•
The Perfect Book to Lift Your Spirits
What is the point of adopting a fact-based worldview? Rosling says that it is essential so that we can better navigate life, the way a GPS helps us navigate a city. Further, knowing the facts about life around us brings us more comfort. We are less alarmed at the news. We are less likely to…
-
•
China’s Communism That Is Not
Even as the US is pulling inward, demonizing foreign nations, calling everyone in the world a cheater, China is aggressively opening to the world, negotiating bilateral trade pacts with every nation it can and another 14 multilateral trade pacts. More goods and investment coming and going – this seems to be the Chinese credo. It…
-
•
How Not to Reform Tax Filing
What Elizabeth Warren intends is to make the highwayman rob you in your sleep, so that you never know he is there and come to expect less ownership in the morning than when you went to bed. Her proposed change to tax filing would diminish property rights, make tax increases easier, reduce your privacy, and…
-
•
Thus Does the Crypto Winter Endeth
There will be another winter. And another. To get the best sense of the potential here, it’s best to look at the price, not day to day, but on a logarithmic scale. Here is where we can see the potential of the technology. That has a much more meaningful significance than the fickle judgments of…
-
•
Facebook Hearings Reveal How Government Regulations Work
Right now, Facebook faces massive competition from other platforms in social media, copycats, and alternative uses of people’s time. In some ways, it’s the best possible moment to call on government to institutionalize Facebook as a form of public utility. That might actually be the end game that Zuckerberg has in mind. Then the politicians…