Born in Philadelphia in 1936, Walter E. Williams holds a bachelor's degree in economics from California State University (1965) and a master's degree (1967) and doctorate (1972) in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1980, he joined the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and is currently the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics. He has also served on the faculties of Los Angeles City College (1967-69), California State University (1967-1971) and Temple University (1973-1980). From 1963 to 1967, he was a group supervisor of juvenile delinquents for the Los Angeles County Probation Department. More than 50 of his publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review and Social Science Quarterly and popular publications such as Reader's Digest, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. He has made many TV and radio appearances on such programs as Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose," William F. Buckley's "Firing Line," "Face The Nation," "Nightline" and "Crossfire." He is also the author of 'Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?' and 'Up from the Projects: An Autobiography.' In 1981, he began writing his weekly column called "A Minority View" for Heritage Features Syndicate. And in 1991, he joined Creators Syndicate as part of its friendly takeover of Heritage Features. Williams sits on many advisory boards, including the Review Board of Economics Studies for the National Science Foundation, the Research Foundation, the National Tax Limitation Committee, the Taxpayer's Foundation and the Hoover Institution. The awards and honors Williams have received are many. These include the National Fellow at the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution, and Peace; the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship; the National Service Award from the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies; and the George Washington Medal of Honor from the Valley Forge Freedom Foundation. In 1984-1985, he received the Faculty Member of the Year Award from the George Mason University Alumni. He is also a member of the American Economic Association, the Mont Pelerin Society and is a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. Williams participates in many debates and conferences, is a frequent public speaker and often gives testimony before both houses of Congress. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams http://media.townhall.com/TownHall/icons/TH-feed-icon-128x128.gif http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams TownHall.com, Where your opinion counts. 128 Copyright (c) 2012 Townhall.com, A Salem Communications Web. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED jim.dearras@townhall.com (Jim De Arras) Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:01:00 GMT Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:01:00 GMT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss RSS.NET: http://www.rssdotnet.com/ Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2012/02/08/economic_chaos_ahead 0c03a4c4-8f20-4505-9c55-accc50455703 Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:01:00 GMT There's been a heap of criticism placed upon President Barack Obama's domestic policies that have promoted government intrusion and prolonged our fiscal crisis and his foreign policies that have emboldened our enemies.... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2012/02/01/obamas_racial_politics 2215d0d2-c549-4ece-802f-9ded24106bb5 Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:01:00 GMT Larry Sand's article "No Wonder Johnny (Still) Can't Read" -- written for The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, based in Raleigh, N.C. -- blames schools of education for the decline in America's... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2012/01/25/schools_of_education 77458a39-e91a-4dbf-8052-e460e30838b0 Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:01:00 GMT Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, "We can't go back to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics." Throughout my professional career as an economist, I've never... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2012/01/18/presidential_nonsense f61e77f9-3f73-4b07-ab58-061b21d3992d Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:01:00 GMT Last week's column started off asking: "What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done?" The answer is that human greed is what gets wonderful things done. I wasn't talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty,... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2012/01/11/in_greed_i_trust 062b7266-b144-4192-a030-31d8106c9fc1 Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:01:00 GMT What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It's really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it's human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2012/01/04/i_love_greed 51b72859-3ab7-4920-9847-30d89b5addd8 Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:01:00 GMT National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman has called for states to mandate a total ban on cellphone usage while driving. She has also encouraged electronics manufacturers -- via recommendations... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/12/28/gullible_americans 9a857134-d39b-4344-a937-86b9ad445875 Wed, 28 Dec 2011 05:01:00 GMT Republicans and Democrats, liberals as well as conservatives, have bought into anti-Chinese trade demagoguery. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that tariffs against China are a "key part of our 'Make It in... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/12/21/china_trade_myths_vs_reality 79372d59-5a01-404f-b2a5-c75dba5e3c6d Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:01:00 GMT The most prevalent theme in President Barack Obama's Dec. 6 Osawatomie, Kan., speech was the need for greater "fairness." In fact, though the president never defined the term fair(ness), he used it 15 times. Explaining... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/12/14/economic_fairness 3650ebc6-c4ed-474e-9b68-d26c8520d18a Wed, 14 Dec 2011 05:01:00 GMT Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column titled "Free to Die" (9/15/2011), pointed out that back in 1980, his late fellow Nobel laureate Milton Friedman lent his voice to the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/12/07/free_to_die d9600ac1-262e-4906-ac09-43ca6ef09cb3 Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:01:00 GMT Benefiting from a hint from an article titled "Is Harry Potter Making You Poorer?", written by my colleague Dr. John Goodman, president of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, I've come up with an... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/11/30/ending_income_inequality 7b5b29aa-b409-461c-a667-b5c8729283e9 Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:01:00 GMT Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb, the phonograph, the DC motor and other items in everyday use and became wealthy by doing so. Thomas Watson founded IBM and became rich through his company's contribution to http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/11/23/should_the_rich_be_condemned e3d91769-8d9a-4a15-8b6d-e57c73db9ea9 Wed, 23 Nov 2011 05:01:00 GMT According to CBS News, "the number of people in the U.S. living in poverty in 2010 rose for the fourth year in a row, representing the largest number of Americans in poverty in the 52 years since such estimates have... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/11/16/poverty_in_america dc491388-9e74-464f-bbaf-fb61598f457d Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:01:00 GMT Many Wall Street occupiers are echoing the Communist Party USA's call to "Save the nation! Tax corporations! Tax the rich!" There are other Americans, on both the left and the right -- for example, President Barack... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/11/09/ignorance_exploited b04ac3c0-7384-48af-81d8-0e0124b36082 Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:01:00 GMT After Moammar Gadhafi's downfall as Libya's tyrannical ruler, politicians and "experts" in the U.S. and elsewhere, including French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, are saying that his death marked the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/11/02/democracy_is_impossible 3718a221-9168-47e2-89c3-8ab71e437355 Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:01:00 GMT The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are demanding "people before profits" -- as if profit motivation were the source of mankind's troubles -- when it's often the absence of profit motivation that's the true... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/10/26/profits_are_for_people 54eb4f6b-537a-4e3d-b2c5-cdd92bf03010 Wed, 26 Oct 2011 04:01:00 GMT President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have led increasingly successful efforts to pit Americans against one another through the politics of hate and envy. Attacking CEO salaries, the president -- last y http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/10/19/pitting_us_against_each_other c0ec9317-3c54-430f-936b-8fdf3339e086 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 04:01:00 GMT Years ago it was easy to be a racist. All you had to be was a white person using some of the racial epithets that are routinely used in song and everyday speech by many of today's blacks. Or you had to chant "two, four,... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/10/12/its_hard_to_be_a_racist 77a820f9-6ff9-4d0d-94fc-21cd3689ba42 Wed, 12 Oct 2011 04:01:00 GMT Politicians who are principled enough to point out the fraud of Social Security, referring to it as a lie and Ponzi scheme, are under siege. Acknowledgment of Social Security's problems is not the same... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/10/05/social_security_disaster 0d597d9a-ceb2-483c-a374-9c2cce3a70af Wed, 05 Oct 2011 04:01:00 GMT What's the common thread between Europe's financial mess, particularly among the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), and the financial mess in the U.S.? That question could be more easily answered if... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/09/28/the_financial_mess_in_the_us_and_europe 1297fdb0-9a95-4956-a5e5-c60f04ad9a2e Wed, 28 Sep 2011 04:01:00 GMT During the recent GOP presidential debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that Social Security is a "monstrous lie" and a "Ponzi scheme." More and more people are coming to see that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, but is... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/09/21/gov_perrys_right_about_social_security fc10a993-71f3-4688-af46-942b107176c4 Wed, 21 Sep 2011 04:01:00 GMT Too much of anything is just as much a misallocation of resources as it is too little, and that applies to higher education just as it applies to everything else. A recent study from The Center for College Affordability... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/09/14/too_much_higher_education c1569ed1-02a9-45a0-8c59-a64814a2c287 Wed, 14 Sep 2011 04:01:00 GMT At one of last month's Congressional Black Caucus-sponsored "job fairs," Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., told the audience: "This is the effort that we're seeing of Jim Crow. Some of these folks in Congress right now would... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/09/07/blacks_and_politics 343d8963-2154-4e6e-98b4-5765e277d24d Wed, 07 Sep 2011 04:01:00 GMT Overall U.S. unemployment is 9.1 percent. For white adults, it's 8 percent, and for white teens, 23 percent. Black adult unemployment stands at 17 percent, and for black teens, it's 40 percent, more than 50 percent in... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/08/31/race_and_economics 9833f9bb-bc36-462e-983a-6e280fc3d05d Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:01:00 GMT What laws are we morally obligated to obey? Help with the answer can be found in "Economic Liberty and the Constitution," a 66-page pamphlet by Jacob G. Hornberger, founder and president of The Future of Freedom... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/08/24/legal_obedience b06d6f87-6ede-4aeb-9d91-2f88ae883e53 Wed, 24 Aug 2011 04:01:00 GMT People are beginning to compare Barack Obama's administration to the failed administration of Jimmy Carter, but a better comparison is to the Roosevelt administration of the 1930s and '40s. Let's look at it with the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/08/17/ominous_parallels e6b5a5d8-f0e5-4572-a514-be54a3a6c964 Wed, 17 Aug 2011 04:01:00 GMT President Barack Obama has called for a luxury tax on corporate jets as a means to generate revenue to fight federal deficits. The president's economic advisers ought to be fired for not telling him that doing so... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/08/10/ignorance,_stupidity_or_connivance 5a803fb7-79ac-4399-a4a0-36754e88fb5f Wed, 10 Aug 2011 04:01:00 GMT What does it take to be able to own and operate a taxi and earn $30,000, $40,000 or more a year? You need to purchase a used car and liability insurance. Compared with other businesses, the startup cost to become a taxi... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/08/03/cruel_laws 715f9f93-b502-4aaf-8f6a-9294d35e17c9 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:01:00 GMT Here's what President Barack Obama said about our high rate of unemployment in an interview with NBC's Ann Curry: "The other thing that happened, though -- and this goes to the point you were just making... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/07/27/job_destruction_makes_us_richer 592e75a2-e195-4345-96da-232811a14154 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 04:01:00 GMT Last December, I reported on Harvard University professor Stephan Thernstrom's essay "Minorities in College -- Good News, But...," on Minding the Campus, a website sponsored by the New York-based Manhattan Institute. He... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/07/20/education_is_worse_than_we_thought 741499b4-15c2-4ef3-ae36-677defb73347 Wed, 20 Jul 2011 04:01:00 GMT A recent Superman comic book has the hero saying, "I am renouncing my U.S. citizenship" because "truth, justice, and the American way -- it's not enough anymore." Though not addressing Superman's statement, Stanford... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/07/13/failing_liberty_101 7d62f093-bf9f-445a-96ae-6063432d5a31 Wed, 13 Jul 2011 04:01:00 GMT There's little that's intelligent or informed about Time magazine editor Richard Stengel's article "One Document, Under Siege" (June 23, 2011). It contains many grossly ignorant statements about our Constitution. If I... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/07/06/gross_media_ignorance ea19303c-e3a7-41af-ba63-46fdb407011d Wed, 06 Jul 2011 04:01:00 GMT The late South African economist William Hutt, in his 1964 book, "The Economics of the Colour Bar," said that one of the supreme tragedies of the human condition is that those who have been the victims of injustices and... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/06/22/americas_new_racists 428c76b9-2468-4717-93d3-de8d0167cffe Wed, 22 Jun 2011 04:01:00 GMT Most of our nation's problems are a direct result of our being immune, hostile or indifferent to several moral questions. Let's start out with the simple and move to the more complex. Or, stated another way, let's begin... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/06/15/our_moral_dilemma 35508cd5-8e5a-4f00-a022-9cdb7a6ad954 Wed, 15 Jun 2011 04:01:00 GMT There are a lot of things, large and small, that irk me. One of them is our tendency to evaluate a presidential candidate based on his intelligence or academic credentials. When Obama threw his hat in the ring,... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/06/08/irksome_things 7d95c6e1-4d8f-4b34-9039-13031a9351e8 Wed, 08 Jun 2011 04:01:00 GMT The latest Social Security Trustees Report tells us that the program will be insolvent by the year 2037. The combined unfunded liability of Social Security and Medicare has reached nearly $107 trillion in today's dollar http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/06/01/do_we_deserve_our_fate e4839943-9cdd-4392-9132-222021241325 Wed, 01 Jun 2011 04:01:00 GMT William J. McGee, the consumer advocate on the Department of Transportation's Future of Aviation Advisory Committee wrote "Forcing the F.A.A. to Fly Blind" in The New York Times (April 9, 2011), where he laments Congres http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/05/25/common_sense_versus_nonsense 5074e3e9-d3ed-452b-9087-45590185cc9d Wed, 25 May 2011 04:01:00 GMT The liberal vision of government is easily understood and makes perfect sense if one acknowledges their misunderstanding and implied assumptions about the sources of income. Their vision helps explain the language they http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/05/18/understanding_liberals 1af207cc-2e02-40f8-90f8-60f4742dd72e Wed, 18 May 2011 04:01:00 GMT As if more proof were needed about the minimum wage's devastating effects, yet another study has reached the same conclusion. Last week, two labor economists, Professors William Even (Miami University of Ohio) and David http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/05/11/minimum_wages_discriminatory_effects 459fbee7-94d8-4dba-95ec-effbec4ae88f Wed, 11 May 2011 04:01:00 GMT Here's a non-rocket science question: If you expect a reduced harvest of wheat, corn, rice or any other commodity some time in the future, what would be the wise thing to do about your consumption today? I bet that the http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/05/04/lets_blame_speculators cf8cfbce-09e9-47fe-9959-1ed680bdc604 Wed, 04 May 2011 04:01:00 GMT Here's a non-rocket science question: If you expect a reduced harvest of wheat, corn, rice or any other commodity some time in the future, what would be the wise thing to do about your consumption today? I bet that the http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/05/04/lets_blame_speculators c17f4ab9-a8a6-491d-b3bd-bc33b331a5ff Wed, 04 May 2011 04:00:00 GMT Smugglers are heroes of sorts. The essence of what a smuggler offers is: "Government tyrants want to either prevent or interfere with peaceable voluntary exchange among individuals. I can reduce the impact of... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/04/27/smugglers_as_heroes bd116d9c-a46f-40b1-9b8a-92192068c91a Wed, 27 Apr 2011 04:01:00 GMT The average American, as parent, student and taxpayer, has little idea of the academic rot at so many of our colleges. Save for a tiny handful of the nation's colleges, what distinguishes one college from another is the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/04/20/academic_rot b76cb6c8-f82a-4378-b544-f5ca9077404f Wed, 20 Apr 2011 04:01:00 GMT I've often said that I wish there were some humane way to get rid of the rich. If you asked why, I'd answer that getting rid of the rich would save us from distraction by leftist hustlers promoting the politics of envy. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/04/13/eat_the_rich 1e809a20-dce6-49b9-951d-242a125ab03c Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:01:00 GMT The terms affirmative action, equal representation, preferential treatment and quotas just don't sell well. The intellectual elite and their media, government and corporate enthusiasts have come up with diversity, a... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/04/06/diversity_perversity 799f0063-445e-4d96-b168-82fa32a019c4 Wed, 06 Apr 2011 04:01:00 GMT One of the requirements to become a Dayton, Ohio police officer is to successfully pass the city's two-part written examination. Applicants must correctly answer 57 of 86 questions on the first part (66 percent) and 73... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2011/03/30/department_of_injustice e6d7d6cf-95aa-4915-b90d-b365076cf62b Wed, 30 Mar 2011 04:01:00 GMT