Sarah Elizabeth Grether, a long time friend, recently passed away in a tragic car accident.  In her honor, I wanted to highlight her incredible involvement with Students for a Free Economy.

The first real engagement I had with Sarah was during the 2008 Clarkson Colloquium, created by SFE's founder and first director, Isaac Morehouse.  As a group of 14 students descended upon Midland, Sarah immediately ingratiated herself to the group.  With such an endearing personality, it's hard not to smile, even when she's telling you your principles are inconsistant. 

In the video, you'll notice Sarah in the group photo, and also her being the one to field the "big question".  The question was, "Isn't it necessary to give up a few individual rights for the benefit of society?" Sarah, in her no nonsense response replies, "Which rights are YOU willing to give up for the betterment of society?"

Always able to turn a question on its head to better understand it, the depth of Sarah's knowledge seemed endless.  This summer, Sarah and her roommate Marcus Lenning were able to participate in the Liberty Summer Seminar in Orono, Ontario. If you've never been there, Orono takes quite some time to drive to from Midland, MI. During that drive, I was able to fully appreciate the conversational skills that garnered Sarah so many friends.

She is sorely missed and we at SFE hope that her story is inspiring to others.  Her engagement with the world around her and her unwavering quest for understanding are things that I personally hope to exhibit.

All the best, Sarah.  Now and always.

I am in no way showing my support for either party, but the free market ideas are winning. I am saying this because Ron Paul, who is a Republican/Libertarian, won the straw poll at CPAC this year by 9% over Mitt Romney.  

Kurt Bouwhuis, Mackinac Center Intern

CPI – All Urban Consumers: Medical Care Costs

Source: From BLS at http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?cu (Check the two medical care boxes and then click retrieve data)

Next, compare this graph with the following timeline provided by PBS, which shows any significant changes in government policy that have traceable effects on the medical care industry: http://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/history.htm

Finally, draw your own conclusion.

Enjoy!

Here is a letter I recently sent to the Midland Daily News:

James Benjamin's entire letter went as follows: “The solution is simple: Medicare for all; keep your private insurance if you want” (“Simple Solutions,” February 17).

Society is a complex outcome that emerges as a result of individuals interacting with one another. No single individual consciously plans its course. As a result, no one fully understands this complex outcome we call society. Government interventions into the society must, therefore, create unintended consequences that no individual is capable of foreseeing. Simply providing Medicare to all will necessarily generate more outcomes than just free health care for everyone.

Nobel Laureate economist F.A. Hayek, in his Nobel Prize Lecture The Pretense of Knowledge, clearly articulated this point in his concluding paragraph: "The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men's fatal striving to control society - a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals."

Kurt Bouwhuis