All Posts Tagged With: "price controls"
Energy Policy: Wisdom or Waste?
Roger McKinney (rdmckinney@cox.net) is senior analyst for a quasigovernmental health-care agency in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We can’t help ourselves. Americans crave the black gold that pulses through the concrete arteries of our nation’s transportation system. In the opinion of many, we have hocked our future for a cheap fix with a drug that abandons our nation [...]
1May2007 | Roger McKinney | 6 comments | ContinuedJohn Kenneth Galbraith: A Criticism and an Appreciation
Last April John Kenneth Galbraith died at the age of 97. Galbraith was one of America ‘s most famous economists and a self-proclaimed liberal (in the American sense of “statist” rather than in the European sense of “believer in freedom”). His fame came not from his technical accomplishments in academic economics but from his awesome [...]
1Dec2006 | David R. Henderson | 30 comments | ContinuedEconomics for the Citizen: Part V
We’re all grossly ignorant about most things that we use and encounter in our daily lives, but each of us is knowledgeable about tiny, relatively inconsequential things. For example, a baker might be the best baker in town, but he’s grossly ignorant about virtually all the inputs that allow him to be the best baker. [...]
1Aug2006 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | ContinuedLudwig von Mises: The Political Economist of Liberty, Part II
Mises’s defense of classical liberalism against the various forms of collectivism was not limited “merely” to the economic benefits of private property.
1Jun2006 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedThe High Cost of Misunderstanding Gasoline Economics
National emergencies, wars, natural disasters—all these things tend to bring about expanded government power.1 Hurricane Katrina was no exception. In addition to promising to spend billions of dollars of other people’s money allegedly to “rebuild” New Orleans and other stricken areas, politicians have been equally generous with other people’s gasoline supplies. In many states, anyone [...]
1Apr2006 | Arthur E. Foulkes | 0 comments | ContinuedAs Frank Chodorov Sees It
John Stuart Mill, says Professor Russell Kirk in a recent article in the conservative National Review, is “dated.” He was referring to the famous treatise On Liberty. The occasion for this dictum is the revival of interest in the treatise, by way of a couple of re-publications and the consequent appearance of critical articles. When [...]
1Apr2006 | Frank Chodorov | 1 comment | ContinuedWe Need a Stiff Oil Tax?
In an article last fall in the Washington Post, one of my favorite economic journalists, Robert J. Samuelson, argued for “a stiff oil tax” and “stricter fuel economy standards” (September 14, 2005). His rationale for this increased government intervention is that “we are vulnerable to any major cutoff of oil.” We can reduce our vulnerability, [...]
1Mar2006 | David R. Henderson | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Radicals’ Rancorous Rage
In a revolution for liberty, they sought power. In an age of individuality and self-reliance, they demanded obedience. In a century of personal excellence, they relished “leveling.” They called themselves Radical Patriots, as though the troops who starved and froze at Valley Forge weren’t patriotic enough. But these eighteenth-century politicians had about them little that [...]
1Jun2005 | Becky Akers | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Price of Free Health Care
Many health-reform proposals in the United States are modeled on the Canadian healthcare system. The usual claim is that a program similar to the one in Canada would provide all Americans access to the finest medical services while managing to be less expensive than the status quo. Unfortunately, these wonderful visions of socialized health care [...]
1May2005 | Nadeem Esmail | 2 comments | ContinuedOn Price Gouging
The immediate aftermath of a natural disaster inevitably brings much higher prices for staple goods, such as lumber, batteries, fuel, and bottled water. Just as inevitably, these higher prices are roundly decried as unjust and inexcusable. Such price hikes are slapped with the derisive name “price gouging.” And even people who typically endorse markets often [...]
1Apr2005 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedFlight from Responsibility
Whenever I catch myself admiring a thinker, I find that he shares a trait with other thinkers I admire: an insistence on clear and honest language, a determination not to take metaphors literally. Apropos of this, September marks the 106th anniversary of the birth of FEE’s founding president, Leonard E. Read, a good time for [...]
1Sep2004 | Sheldon Richman | 2 comments | ContinuedTruman’s Attempt to Seize the Steel Industry
In U.S. history many of the most drastic incursions on private property rights have sprung from the conjunction of a threatened work stoppage, owing to a union-management dispute, and the government’s desire to expedite a war-production program. Such a conjunction underlay the government’s nationalization of the railroads, the telegraph lines, and the Smith & Wesson [...]
1Mar2004 | Robert Higgs | 2 comments | ContinuedHealers Under Siege
Contributing Editor Doug Bandow is a syndicated columnist and the author and editor of several books. He is co-editor of Wealth, Poverty and Human Destiny (ISI, 2003). The Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug to combat non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. That’s good news for cancer patients in America and around the world. But you wouldn’t [...]
1Nov2003 | Doug Bandow | 0 comments | ContinuedCanutes Courtiers Were Wrong
Shortly after the northeast blackout a New York Times headline blared: “Under Deregulation, Montana Power Price Soars.” The story explained that “Montana residents used to pay some of the lowest rates for power in the Northwest, but now, some lawmakers lament, they pay among the region’s highest. What happened? Mainly deregulation.” The story went on: [...]
1Nov2003 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedProfits Versus Love
A few years back we thought about building a deck or a porch on the back of our house. But we decided against it when the estimates started coming in. They were about double what the architect had told us it would cost. Double! Had the architect misled us as a way of encouraging us [...]
1Jun2003 | Russell Roberts | 0 comments | ContinuedEvaluating New Drugs: Remember the Bigger Picture
“Don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish” is an old adage that cautions us about false savings. Sometimes spending a little more now makes the best sense if it maximizes our savings in the long run. Failure to understand this lesson is at the root of many misjudgments and bad policies swirling around prescription drugs these days. [...]
1Oct2002 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | ContinuedMuting Messages
As schoolchildren we learn of ancient kings who, when told of their armies’ defeats, angrily commanded that the messengers be put to death. Each of us recoils at the cruelty and pointlessness of such killings. We ask ourselves how anyone could be so foolish as to imagine that a messenger is in any way to [...]
1Oct2002 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | Continued-
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