All Posts Tagged With: "consumer choice"

Dim Bulbs

“Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something.”
—Thomas A. Edison
Edison’s words may have been true in the 1800s. Today, however, we have plenty of rules, thanks to the U.S. Congress. Some are so bizarre that you have to question the judgment of those who come up with them. One rule in particular is [...]

10Jun2009 | Michael Heberling | 22 comments | Continued

The Big We Really Need to Beware

Wayne Dunn (WayDunn@aol.com) is a freelance writer living in Tennessee.
It’s funny how an innocent little word like “big” can be used to help conjure up images of corruption. Just think of what’s usually meant by “big oil,” “big drug companies,” and “big corporations.”
But are big businesses inherently bad, as some would like us to believe?
Consider [...]

1Jul2004 | Wayne Dunn | 0 comments | Continued

Choice Is Bad for Us? It Just Aint So!

One of the often-unperceived consequences of an expanding welfare state is the gradual atrophy of independent judgment. Judgment is a skill, and, like other skills, it must be exercised to be vigorous and dependable. The fewer opportunities people have to exercise their judgment and the more that others make decisions for them, the weaker this [...]

1Jun2004 | James R. Otteson | 0 comments | Continued

Washington’s Centrally Planned Heating and Cooling

While the Clinton administration had eight years to “save the environment,” it waited until the final days to push through a flurry of questionable environmental regulations. Among these was the regulation that would require increasing the efficiency of central air conditioners and heat pumps by 30 percent. In the arcane language of the energy business, [...]

1Jul2003 | Michael Heberling | Comments Off | Continued

Henry Ford, Upton Sinclair, and Limits on Consumer Choice

Richard Coffman and Ashley Lyman are associate professors of economics at the University of Idaho.
Early in the twentieth century two prominent Americans, one a capitalist, the other a socialist, enunciated surprisingly similar views on the relationship between product differentiation and consumer welfare. The capitalist, Henry Ford, had revolutionized the young automobile industry, using mass-production techniques [...]

1Feb2003 | Richard B. Coffman and R. Ashl | 0 comments | Continued