All Posts Tagged With: "competition"

Nuclear Energy Should Be Subsidized?

In a March 5 Los Angeles Times op-ed, “Jump-starting Nuclear Energy,” Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore, who now co-chairs the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, lauds the Obama administration for its decision to “guarantee loans for two advance-design nuclear plants in Georgia.” Nuclear energy diversifies our energy portfolio and doesn’t pollute the air the way fossil [...]

20May2010 | | 9 comments | Continued

Theodore Roosevelt, Big-Government Man

Theodore Roosevelt has been known as “the Good Roosevelt,” “the Republican Roosevelt,” and “the conservative Roosevelt,” as distinguished from his fifth cousin Franklin, who’s credited with ushering in modern American big government. Yet promoters of big government have long recognized TR as one of their own. Biographer Frank Freidel wrote that “While at Groton [Franklin [...]

24Feb2010 | | 8 comments | Continued

Another Mystery of the Universe

In an actual free market who would buy medical coverage from a company with a reputation for trying never to pay claims or dropping customers after they get sick?

24Nov2009 | | 0 comments | Continued

Competition

Give Me a Break! Competition by John Stossel John Stossel is the hosts of Stossel on Fox Business and the author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know is Wrong. Copyright 2009 by JFS Productions, Inc. Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc. “Choice, competition, reducing costs—those are the things that [...]

23Oct2009 | | 1 comment | Continued

How “Intellectual Property” Impedes Competition

Any consideration of “intellectual property rights” must start from the understanding that such “rights” undermine genuine property rights and hence are illegitimate in terms of libertarian principle. Real, tangible property rights result from natural scarcity and follow as a matter of course from the attempt to maintain occupancy of physical property that cannot be possessed [...]

23Sep2009 | | 14 comments | Continued

Obama’s Health-Insurance Cartel

President Obama and other advocates of nationalized health insurance have tried a variety of sales pitches, which indicates their difficulty in getting traction with the public. The latest is “competition and choice.” Who could be against those things? Well, Obama for one, followed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House member Barney Frank, and everyone else [...]

21Aug2009 | | 1 comment | Continued

TGIF: Obama's Health-Insurance Cartel

President Obama and other advocates of nationalized health insurance have tried  a variety of sales pitches, which indicates their difficulty in getting traction with the public. The latest is”competition and choice.” Who could be against those things? Barack Obama for one. The rest of TGIF is here.

21Aug2009 | | 1 comment | Continued

Competition Would Save Medicine, Too

Competition so regularly brings us better stuff—cars, phones, shoes, medicine—that we’ve come to expect it. We complain on the rare occasion the supermarket doesn’t carry a particular ice-cream flavor. We just assume the store will have 30,000 items, that it will be open 24/7, and that the food will be fresh and cheap. I take [...]

19Aug2009 | | 11 comments | Continued

From Good Samaritan to Robin Hood

The clamor from interventionists against inequality morphs into a clamor for a larger and larger state. This path leads to the loss of liberty and a distortion of both democracy and justice. It distorts democracy because, by attempting to solve inequality, it removes limits to power and expands the field of state action. It distorts justice because the only way to solve inequality politically is for the state to have the power to treat individuals unequally. Thus the struggle to eliminate inequality ends up destroying the most important form of equality for an open society: equality before the law.

10Jun2009 | | 2 comments | Continued

Hubris in the First Degree

“I will commit two billion dollars each year on clean-coal research and development. We will build the demonstration plants, refine the techniques and equipment, and make clean coal a reality.” That’s what John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, said back on June 18 in Springfield, Missouri. My first reaction was this: “That’s mighty generous of [...]

1Oct2008 | | 0 comments | Continued

Cable-Franchise Reform: Deregulation or Just New Regulators?

Adam Summers is a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation. There is much hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing among politicians who decry businesses for maintaining monopolies that harm consumers. Yet in a free market such businesses will find any monopoly position fleeting. If they charge too much or fail to provide suitable quality in their products and [...]

1Apr2007 | | 1 comment | Continued

Europe: Still a Laggard Economy

There have been increasing signs of optimism from European economy watchers. After some years in the doldrums, with slow growth and rising unemployment, things appear to be looking up: labor markets are more efficient; growth was good for 2006; and the euro is doing well against the dollar after years of weakness following its inception [...]

1Mar2007 | | 0 comments | Continued

Capitalism and Democracy

I recently heard a prominent American politician tell how a “chill” went up his spine when he heard someone question the importance of democracy. How could anyone doubt the value of democracy? he wondered. Fortunately, he said, he soon realized that by “democracy” his (European) interlocutor really meant “capitalism.” Whew, he thought, that’s all right, [...]

1Nov2006 | | 1 comment | Continued

On Misplaced Concreteness in Social Theory

The following piece will not be as abstruse as its title suggests. Rather, it results from the simple observation that, time and time again, some harmful outcome or process commonly attributed to the everyday workings of the market economy actually does exist, but it exists in the realm of the government and politics. Politicians and [...]

1May2006 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Disconnect Between Political Promises and Performance

What can politicians do to create more higher paying jobs? Politicians must think that most of us believe the answer is: a lot. One of the most persistent campaign promises is the creation of good jobs at good wages. I shall argue that politicians can do quite a number of things to increase high-wage employment. [...]

1Apr2006 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Government Licensing Scam

Last May a man named Mike Fisher, from the town of Newmarket, New Hampshire, performed an act for which he will pay dearly under penalty of law. He engaged in a consensual commercial transaction with another willing individual. He performed a manicure. Mike Fisher, outlaw, enemy of the realm, planted himself outside the state Board [...]

1Apr2006 | | 2 comments | Continued

The Trade Deficit Lowers Our Living Standard?

If Americans could figure out a way to bottle and export all the nonsense and half-truths that have been written about the U.S. trade deficit, the alleged problem might fix itself.

1Jan2006 | | 1 comment | Continued
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