For baby boomers, Social Security is a rip-off-that much is already well known. But Hoover fellow David R. Henderson argues that even old folks would have been better off without it.

A quarter of a century after Procter & Gamble developed the fat substitute olestra, the Food and Drug Administration finally approved it. Now a group associated with Ralph Nader, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, is accusing the FDA of beinga corporate lapdog. Hoover fellow Henry I. Miller details an absurdity.

Productivity-the value of goods or services produced per hour of work-is a very important economic indicator. Hoover fellow and Stanford economics professor John B. Taylor argues that, despite the current low levels of inflation and unemployment, productivity growth in the United States has now fallen to levels not seen since before the Industrial Revolution. Why productivity growth matters-and what can be done to reverse the slump.

Argue that the economy should be growing more briskly, and you have Nobel Prize-winner and Hoover fellow Milton Friedman's sympathy. Argue that the Federal Reserve Bank should be doing something about it, and you lose Friedman's sympathy. The man who coined the term explains why the natural rate of unemployment is no argument for loose money-or, for that matter, tight money, either.