All Posts Tagged With: "price system"
The 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 | ContinuedMitigating Disaster: Abolish FEMA and Let Gas Prices Rise
The waste, delays, and incompetence that characterize FEMA are the result of a free-rider problem inherent in all federal spending programs.
1Dec2005 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 comments | ContinuedSupply, Demand, Inventory
Supply-and-demand analysis is the bread and butter
of classroom economics. All over America as the
leaves change color and college commences, professors
of economics are shifting supply and demand
curves and showing how the price of a good changes in
response.
On 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 | ContinuedWhy Socialism Is Impossible
In the nineteenth century, critics of socialism generally made two arguments against the establishment of a collectivist society. First, they warned that under a regime of comprehensive socialism the ordinary citizen would be confronted with the worst of all imaginable tyrannies. In a world in which all the means of production were concentrated in the [...]
1Oct2004 | Richard M. Ebeling | 4 comments | ContinuedAustrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom
The revival of the modern Austrian school of economics may be said to have begun 30 years ago, during the week of June 15–22, 1974, when the Institute for Humane Studies sponsored a conference on Austrian economics for about 40 participants in the small town of South Royalton, Vermont. In 1974 the Austrian school had [...]
1Jun2004 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Absurdity of "Saving Jobs"
Timothy Terrell teaches economics at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In any period of economic distress there is a renewed search for political solutions to unemployment. It seems obvious that jobs must be saved, and the government must be the key to preserving those jobs. So we get another round of government intervention: economic [...]
1Dec2003 | Timothy D. Terrell | 7 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 | ContinuedTo the Medical Socialists of All Parties
British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour Party created a small furor in Great Britain recently when its National Policy Forum issued a paper suggesting changes that might be made in the National Health Service (NHS) if the party holds power. The paper, “Improving Health and Social Care,” covers a lot of ground, but the item [...]
1Sep2003 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedIs the Marketplace Efficient?
It is tempting to defend the free market by claiming it’s efficient. But we’d better resist that temptation. It can lead to trouble. Individuals surely strive for efficiency; to the best of his knowledge, each person attempts to economize resources, time, and energy in the pursuit of goals, and each necessarily puts higher values before [...]
1Sep2003 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedPlanned Chaos: Industrial Waste Recycling in Communist Economies
Pierre Desrochers is a research associate at the Montreal Economic Institute (www.iedm.org). Most advocates of “sustainable development” assume that traditional market incentives, such as the price system and private property rights, lead to wasteful and environmentally harmful practices. Not surprisingly, some proponents, such as bestselling authors Paul Hawken, Sim Van Der Ryn, and Stuart Cowan, [...]
1Jul2003 | Pierre Desrochers | 1 comment | ContinuedOf Human Hypocrisy
A scene in W. Somerset Maugham’s beautiful novel Of Human Bondage captures the hypocrisy and pretense of much of what passes today for enlightened thought. Philip Carey, the novel’s protagonist, invites a dying friend, Cronshaw, to spend his final days at his small apartment. Cronshaw is a penniless poet. Leonard Upjohn is a self-satisfied writer [...]
1Jun2003 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
Poor Definitions of “Deflation” and “Inflation” To the Editor: Contrary to Stephen Davies’s March column, “The History of ‘Deflation,’” traditionally and historically, “inflation” referred to a “large” increase in the quantity of money, “deflation” to a “large” decrease. These definitions were not scientifically precise, for what is “large” was always debatable. Moreover, the quantity of [...]
1Jun2003 | FEE Admin | 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 | ContinuedSelf-Interest, Part 2
When he tried to do anything for the good of everybody, for humanity, for Russia, for the whole village, he had noticed that the thoughts of it were agreeable, but the activity itself was always unsatisfactory; there was no full assurance that the work was really necessary. . . . But now since his marriage, [...]
1Mar2003 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 1 comment | ContinuedPrivatizing Airline Safety and Security
The events of 9/11 underscore the importance of improving the safety and security of air travel. The government’s response to the terrorist attacks employs a command-and-control approach. That approach ought to be questioned. After all, it was the Federal Aviation Administration’s system that failed on 9/11. Why should we expect additional controls to be more [...]
1Nov2002 | Paul A. Cleveland | 4 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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