Cato Unbound points us to a couple of articles that provide insightful observations on two of the crises that are swirling around us these days.

First, William Niskanen cautions us regarding the fear-mongering that supporters of the Obama Administration’s fiscal stimulus plan are using to justify emergency passage of the plan:

This is the fifth time in my adult life that the president has asked for or asserted unprecedented authority on an expedited basis with little or no congressional review. Each of the prior occasions turned out to be a disaster. [.  .  .]

The only coherence in this plan is political, not whether it is an effective or efficient method to stimulate the economy.   .   .  .  Again, as in the four prior episodes, there is every reason not to rush to approve a program of such magnitude.

The primary reason for the current financial crisis is that many banks cannot evaluate their own solvency or that of their current or potential counter-parties, primarily because of the difficulty of valuing mortgage-backed securities and other complex derivatives, and neither TARP nor the fiscal stimulus plan addresses this problem.

Our political system, unfortunately, is strongly biased to try to protect people against the effects of a crisis without addressing the causes of the crisis. To Congress: Slow down. Make sure you understand the causes of the financial crisis and the potential solutions before you burden your children and your grandchildren with another trillion dollars of federal debt.

Your present course is best described as fiscal child abuse.

Meanwhile, as Texans continue to watch nervously to the south as the Mexican government teeters on the brink of losing control of large sectors of the country to drug kingpins, Dale Gieringer reminds us that the main cause of this crisis — U.S. drug prohibition — is the result of dubious public policy:

This week marks the centennial of a fateful landmark in U.S. history, the nation’s first drug prohibition law.  On February 9, 1909, Congress passed the Opium Exclusion Act, barring the importation of opium for smoking as of April 1.  Thus began a hundred-year crusade that has unleashed unprecedented crime, violence and corruption around the world —a war with no victory in sight.

Long accustomed to federal drug control, most Americans are unaware that there was once a time when people were free to buy any drug, including opium, cocaine, and cannabis, at the pharmacy.  In that bygone era, drug-related crime and violence were largely unknown, and drug use was not a major public concern. [.  .  .]

Early 20th-century Americans would be astounded to see what a problem drugs have become since the establishment of drug prohibition. Every year, two million Americans are arrested and 400,000 imprisoned for drug offenses that did not exist in their time.  Drug laws are now the number-one source of crime in the U.S., with one-half of the entire adult population having violated them.

Long gone are the days when Americans were free to keep opium in their closet; today, even gravely suffering patients are denied pain-killing narcotics by their doctors out of fear of federal prosecution. While smoking opium has faded from the scene, the country is now rife with more potent and lethal narcotics, which are widely sold on the illegal market. 

Seen in retrospect, drug prohibition ranks as one of the great man-made disasters of the 20th century. .  .  .