All Posts Tagged With: "subsidies"

Let’s Not Be Energy Independent

“Energy independence” is a term that sounds good but falls apart on closer examination. Although the United States could achieve energy independence, we could do so only at an enormous cost. Energy “dependence” is much cheaper and much more desirable. Before considering the costs and benefits of energy independence, I should define my terms. What [...]

1Oct2008 | | 14 comments | Continued

Freedom or Free-for-All?

Lawrence Reed became the president of FEE on September 1. To honor the occasion, we reprint his first “Ideas and Consequences” column, which was originally published in The Freeman in April 1994. Imagine playing a game—baseball, cards, “Monopoly,” or whatever—in which there was only one rule: anything goes. You could discard the “instruction book” from [...]

1Sep2008 | | 0 comments | Continued

Hands Off “Windfall” Profits

You don’t have to like the oil companies to reject the windfall-profits tax. All you have to know is that if you tax something, you’ll get less of it. No one can seriously dispute this piece of common sense. That leaves the strong suspicion that the motive for the tax is punitive: those companies are [...]

1Jul2008 | | 0 comments | Continued

The Subsidy of History

A considerable number of libertarian commentators have remarked on the sheer scale of subsidies and protections to big business, on their structural importance to the existing form of corporate capitalism, and on the close intermeshing of corporate and state interests in the present state capitalist economy. We pay less attention, however, to the role of [...]

1Jun2008 | | 19 comments | Continued

Health Care Cons

Economist Joan Robinson (1903–1983) wrote, “The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of readymade answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” A better reason to study economics is to avoid being deceived by politicians; they are the far greater threat to life, liberty, and [...]

1Apr2008 | | 6 comments | Continued

Downtown Revitalization: City Governments Versus Consumers

What a thrill to visit cities that have “revitalized” their downtown areas! From the empty streets to the government offices to the abandoned retail spaces—what’s not to like? Well, everything, of course. Not only are such areas unsightly and useless, they often come at the expense of millions of taxpayer dollars and eminent-domain coercion. There’s [...]

1Apr2008 | | 3 comments | Continued

Is Fair Trade a Fair Deal?

Gene Callahan is the author of Economics for Real People. We’ve all seen the signs in our local cafes, boasting something like: “We proudly sell coffee brewed with Fair Trade coffee beans, acquired at a price that permits sustainable farming and pays growers a living wage.” These posters are part of a popular trend in [...]

1Mar2008 | | 3 comments | Continued

The New Deal and the State and Local Governments

Until the twentieth century the average American in peacetime had little contact with the federal government, except for the post office, and the federal government’s policies and actions affected most people only indirectly—for example, through land-disposition policies or the tariff’s effect on commodity prices. State and local governments provided nearly all the government services the [...]

1Mar2008 | | 5 comments | Continued

The Fear of Free Trade

It’s hard to think of an issue that is more polarized than the one between free traders and protectionists. Those of us who favor free trade believe in the ethical principle that people should be free to buy from whomever they choose, and in the economic truth that wealth and efficiency increase as prices fall. [...]

1Dec2007 | | 1 comment | Continued

Pundit in Wonderland

In one of those boilerplate articles about the deteriorating American middle class, Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson last September pointed out that a new Pew Research Center survey revealed that an increasing number of people think we live in a country divided into “haves” and “have-nots” and that more people now put themselves in the [...]

1Nov2007 | | 0 comments | Continued

Something Besides Money Growth Causes Inflation?

Howard Baetjer, Jr., is a lecturer in economics at Towson University. Some economic phenomena can result from a variety of causes. A temporary increase in unemployment, for example, might be caused by a sudden, disruptive change in production technology, or in trade patterns, or in labor or tax laws; or it could be caused by [...]

1Jul2007 | | 7 comments | Continued

Sprawl versus Coastal Beauty

Timothy Terrell is an associate professor of economics at Wofford College in South Carolina. “It’s a bad idea to turn the whole future of a region over only to people with money to make.” So says a local college professor, John Lane, in a recent editorial in one of our community newspapers. The article described [...]

1Jun2007 | | 0 comments | Continued

Book Reviews – June 2007

  • Hitlers Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State

    by Goetz Aly Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
  • The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money
    by Timothy P. Carney Reviewed by Sheldon Richman
  • Income and Wealth
    by Alan Reynolds Reviewed by George C. Leef
  • The Sarbanes-Oxley Debacle What We Have Learned; How to Fix It
    by Henry N. Butler and Larry E. Ribstein Reviewed by Barbara Hunter
  • The Joy of SOX: Why Sarbanes-Oxley and Service-Oriented Architecture May Be the Best Thing That Ever Happened to You
    by Hugh Taylor Reviewed by Barbara Hunter
1Jun2007 | | 0 comments | Continued

Freedom and the Role of Government

Richard Ebeling is the president of FEE. What is the role of government? This has been and remains the most fundamental question in all political discussions and debates. Its answer will determine the nature of the social order and how people will be expected and allowed to interact with one another—on the basis of either [...]

1May2007 | | 0 comments | Continued

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 | | 6 comments | Continued

Welfare for the Rich

Advocates of the free market—including those considered “right-wing” and “conservative”—believe it is wrong to violate property rights. Consequently, they oppose egalitarian measures to steal from the rich and give to the poor. Such “income redistribution” represents naked theft and epitomizes the Founding Fathers’ fears of unfettered democracy. At the same time, champions of laissez faire [...]

1Apr2007 | | 11 comments | Continued

Climate Change: What if They’re Right?

What do Pat Robertson, Gregg Easterbrook, and Michael Shermer have in common? They’ve all moved from climate-change skepticism to the “global warming consensus.” These leading lights may help guide others toward this consensus too. And given the possibility that believers in global warming are right, I’d like to be charitable and suppose that, first, this [...]

1Jan2007 | | 20 comments | Continued
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