All Posts Tagged With: "consumers"

Ludwig von Mises: Economist, Philosopher, Prophet

Editor’s Note: September 29 is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig von Mises, the great Austrian economist, defender of classical liberalism, and adviser to FEE. Below is a selection of Mises’s writings published in The Freeman over the years. The Market It is customary to speak metaphorically of the automatic and anonymous forces [...]

24Aug2011 | Ludwig von Mises | 0 comments | Continued

Oil Tax Breaks Survive Senate Vote

“The Senate on Tuesday blocked a Democratic proposal to strip the five leading oil companies of tax breaks that backers of the measure said were unfairly padding industry profits while consumers were struggling with high gas prices.” (New York Times) Discretion in the hands of politicians is dangerous. FEE Timely Classic “Tax Breaks Aren’t Subsidies” [...]

18May2011 | Foundation for Economic Education | 1 comment | Continued

Oil Prices Are Rigged? It Just Ain’t So!

In reality, all prices are determined by supply and demand, properly defined. Outside investors with lots of money can certainly influence prices, but there are always risks. Funds that had large “long” bets on commodities took a bath as oil fell from its July 2008 high of $145 down to well below $50 a few months later. Futures markets allow producers and consumers to hedge against needless risk by locking in prices, and they allow speculators with superior foresight to improve the allocation of resources over time. Our Time authors think they’ve shown that the oil market is rigged, but it just ain’t so!

21May2009 | Robert P. Murphy | 2 comments | Continued

Wal-Mart Is Good for the Economy

Ideologues who rant against Wal-Mart do not understand economics. In a market economy, success goes to those businesses that best and most efficiently serve consumer needs.

1Oct2005 | John Semmens | 1 comment | Continued

"Emeril" Economics

How many times have you gone to a movie and left thinking, “That was fun. I was entertained”? Then you get the newspaper the next day and read what the movie critics have to say about the picture you just enjoyed: “Two stars. Predictable, wooden acting.” “Two thumbs down. Don’t producers and directors have any [...]

1Oct2002 | Larry Schweikart | 1 comment | Continued

Market-Share Sophisms

Christopher Mayer is a loan officer at a bank in Maryland and an MBA student at the University of Maryland. There are few more widely held fallacies than equating market share to power over consumers and competitors. That great companies maintain dominant positions in their markets is a red flag for regulators and anti-capitalist moralists, [...]

1Jun1999 | Christopher Mayer | 2 comments | Continued

Captain Consumer

“The direction of all economic affairs is in the market society a task of entrepreneurs. Theirs is the control of production. They are at the helm and steer the ship. A superficial observer would believe that they are supreme. But they are not. They are bound to obey unconditionally the captain’s orders. The captain is [...]

1Feb1999 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

Wisdom of a Liberal Giant

Dr. Peterson, Heritage Foundation adjunct scholar, is Distinguished Lundy Professor Emeritus of Business Philosophy at Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina. He knew Milton Friedman, Henry Hazlitt, William F. Buckley Jr., Ayn Rand. He was the mentor of F. A. Hayek, who went on to win the Nobel Prize in economics. He was a key [...]

1May1997 | William H. Peterson | 0 comments | Continued

We Should Welcome Immigrant Workers

The people who are daily landing here are not paupers, if the capacity and disposition to labour may exempt a man from that appellation. They are, for the most part, the sons and daughters of useful toil. They are men and women of hardy frames, accustomed to earn their living by the sweat of their [...]

1Nov1996 | William Leggett | 0 comments | Continued

America’s Other Democracy

Dr. Peterson, Heritage Foundation adjunct scholar, is Distinguished Lundy Professor Emeritus of Business Philosophy at Campbell University in North Carolina, and author of a forthcoming book, Peterson’s Law: Why Things Go Wrong, from which this article is drawn. Leonard Read used to tell the story of a shopper in a crowded department store during the [...]

1Mar1996 | William H. Peterson | 0 comments | Continued

Inequality of Wealth and Incomes

Professor Mises (1881-1973), one of the century’s pre-eminent economic thinkers, was academic adviser to The Foundation for Economic Education from 1946 until his death. This article first appeared in the May 1955 issue of Ideas on Liberty, published by FEE. The market economy—capitalism—is based on private ownership of the material means of production and private [...]

1Mar1996 | Ludwig von Mises | 1 comment | Continued

Well Worth Reading

Federalized Education? There is a large and vocal group calling for federal aid to education. It may reasonably be presumed that the arguments advanced by this group as to why the local school should have a pipeline into the national treasury are the best arguments that could be devised while remaining within calling distance of [...]

1Jun1956 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | Continued

If There Were No Capitalism

Mr. Chamberlin is an editorial contributor to the Wall Street Journal. “If there were no God it would be necessary to invent Him.” Thus the witty and skeptical Voltaire’s phrase could also be applied to the economic system known as capitalism, often buried with much pomp and circumstance by communist, socialist, and assorted left wing [...]

1Feb1956 | William Henry Chamberlin | 0 comments | Continued

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