The Little Brown Reader

Those are just a few of the angry e-mail messages viewers have sent to ABC's 20/20 co-host John Stossel over the past few years. Some of the show's viewers evidently haven't taken well to Stossel's personal journey towards a libertarian worldview as reflected in his most recent television presentations.

"I don't know why my fellow journalists try to label me as 'conservative' these days," Stossel said. "Where I come from, being called 'conservative' is like being called a 'child molester.'"

Stossel spoke Wednesday at a luncheon event hosted by Chicago's Heartland Institute, a non-profit think tank that promotes the philosophy of free market and personal responsibility. He was promoting his new book entitled, Give Me a Break.

Stossel told the audience while working as an award-winning consumer reporter, he found the ever-growing list of government regulations on American products has led to an increase in consumer dissatisfaction and complaints. He told the audience of three hundred he believes if government regulations were lifted and the enforcing bureaucracies were to be defunded, the free market competition would eventually take care of the most serious abusers.

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John Stossel is that rare creature, a TV commentator who understands economics, in all its subtlety. Read this fascinating book to learn - by example after example - how the indirect, unseen, effects of government policies often dominate the direct, seen, effects. Again and again, policies have effects the opposite of those intended.

Heartland Institute's Joe Bast encouraged the audience to purchase Stossel's book and have it autographed as they were departing.