Price Controls
The High Cost of Washington's Price Manipulation Policy
Yaron Brook Don Watkins | 5 December 2008
Maybe it's time for a new approach. How about we start thinking of ways to address this crisis by getting the government out of the business of price manipulation--and let prices, from home values to interest rates, be determined by people's free choices and the law of supply and demand?
Maybe it's time for a new approach. How about we start thinking of ways to address this crisis by getting the government out of the business of price manipulation--and let prices, from home values to interest rates, be determined by people's free choices and the law of supply and demand?
In Search of Villains for Rising Food and Oil Prices
Walter Williams | 28 May 2008Instead of condemning commodity speculation, we ought to recognize the vital function it serves. Let's look at it with a simplified example that captures the essence of speculation in commodity futures markets.
What to Do About Rising Gas Prices
Alex Epstein | 24 May 2007With gasoline prices at their highest point in recent years, the knee-jerk response of many is to call for the government to "do something" to force prices lower. But no matter what the price of gasoline is, such calls are wrong. All market fluctuations in the price of gasoline, up or down, are a good thing--and none of the government's business.
"Price-Gouging," Opportunity Costs, and the Economics of Prices
Walter Williams | 31 May 2006Historical costs do not determine prices; what economists call opportunity costs do.
"Price Gouging" Laws
David Holcberg | 18 May 2006"Price gouging" as used today has no objective meaning or definition.
The Missed Debate Over 'Price-Gouging'
Nicholas Provenzo | 11 May 2006It is not ignorance of economics that prompted the House to pass anti-"price-gouging" legislation; economics has nothing to do with it.
Thinking About Gas Prices
Thomas Sowell | 9 May 2006Amid all the hysteria among politicians and in the media over rising gasoline prices, and all the outraged indignation about oil company profits and their executives' high pay and lavish perks, has anybody bothered to even estimate how much effect any of this actually has on the price we pay at the pump?
Anti-'Price-Gouging' Regulation
Nicholas Provenzo | 5 May 2006Thirty years ago, Americans let Democrats under Jimmy Carter devastate the American economy by enacting their price controls on energy. The real crime will be that the American people might very well allow the Republicans to make the same mistake today.
Gas Prices and Bush's "Appeasenomics"
Harry Binswanger | 30 April 2006Just as appeasement doesn't work in foreign policy, so it doesn't work against one's domestic critics. It only serves to embolden one's enemies.
Oily Politicians I: Oil Prices Rise as Oil Drilling is Restricted By Politicians
Thomas Sowell | 27 April 2006If there is anything worse than partisan demagoguery, it is bipartisan demagoguery. Republican leaders have now joined the Democrats in blaming the oil companies for the fact that prices rise when demand expands more than supply.
Dollars and Crosses
- Jane Orient on Quitting Medicare
- Ayn Rand’s Essay “To Whom It May Concern” Now Online
- Uses and Sources of Gold
- New Book: How to be Profitable and Moral: A Rational Egoist Approach to Business
- Democracy and Self Determination of Peoples: Euphenisms for Mob Rule in the Middle East
- Private Schools for the Poor
- Holleran on Anti-Hero Worship
- Salsman on the Anti-Capitalist Conservatives
- New Website: Checking Premises
- Job Creators: Who Do those Immigrants Think They Are?
