Eli Lehrer is the National Director of The Heartland Institute's Center on Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. In that capacity, he oversees The Heartland Institute's national work on financial issues as well as it's offices in Tallahassee, Florida and Austin, Texas. Before joining Heartland he served as speechwriter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a project manager for the Unisys Corporation, Senior Editor of The American Enterprise magazine, and a fellow for the Heritage Foundation.

Posts by author:

Eli Lehrer

Economics? Sure. Culture? Maybe not.

Although I disagree strongly with his IQ-based determianism, Charles Murray’s already chattered-about Washington Post op-ed on the rise of a new elite makes at least some valid points.

Income inequality has increased a good deal over the past 30 years. And as most Americans have seen their incomes climb relatively slowly — and even decline in the past few years — the number of people who qualify as “rich” has exploded. So, from an economic perspective, a divide between an elite and the masses is quantifiable and growing. And if Murray had left things there, well, I’d have to say, “QED.” But the cultural examples Murray gives leave me perplexed.

[click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }

This Should Not Have Gone To Court

The International law firm of Steptoe and Johnson has, at least for now, forced D.C.-based burger joint Rouge States out of business. Steptoe says that exhaust from the burger place’s grill — located just four blocks from Heartland’s D.C. office — caused “nausea, headaches and general annoyance.”

I’ve only skimmed the legal complaints and I don’t know who is right. What’s important, interesting, and sad is that this ever ended up in court. There must, literally, be more than 1 million workplaces in the United States with a food-server nearby. The negative externalities they cause can be dealt with in any number of ways.  The only reason that something like this ends up in court is because both sides are utterly recalcitrant. And that’s, what I’d guess happened here.

{ 1 comment }