Seattle’s ironically-named ‘Housing Affordability’ law makes renovating a modest home prohibitively expensive for middle-income homeowners.
Regulation
Government Regulation Does Not Make us Safe—Capitalism Does
So which is more effective in keeping us—as customers and employees—safe: the government bureaucrat with no personal incentive, or the businessman, whose profits and reputation depend on the safety and satisfaction of his employees and customers?
Regulators Helping To Make Pandemics Worse
Politicians and bureaucrats continue to push and implement the most infuriating and misguided regulations and policies they can dream up.
Voice of Capitalism
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Innovation vs. Regulation: Cutting Red Tape
America became the most innovative and prosperous nation in history because many Americans were adventurous, individualistic people willing to take big risks to discover things that might make life better.
Securities Regulation Harms Businesses
The problems startups have in raising capital caused by securities regulation.
Product Quality and Safety: Government Regulation or Free Competition?
In free markets with a strong protection of individual rights by the government, competition weeds out bad products and bad companies.
Regulations Impede Rationality
Regulations force individuals to act contrary to their own judgment. This applies to both irrational and rational decisions.
Trust Reputation, Beware of Regulation
Trust — society depends on it.
Reputation Protects Better Than Regulation
Regulators call themselves “consumer protectors,” but often their main role is to ban better options.
Does Government Regulation Make Us Safe?
Proper protection of individual rights by government and private licensing and certification programs would make us safer (100% safety for fallible and mortal beings is impossible)—no regulations and government inspectors needed.
Reputation Versus Regulation: Why Is The Government Concerned With Whom You Eat With?
Most regulation is useless. It’s the need to maintain one’s reputation that does most to keep us safe.
Abolish the TSA
The TSA is a failure.
Unemployment: A Deadlier Disaster for the Third World
As wage rates rise, workers can more and more afford to accept lesser increases along with improved working conditions of a kind that must be at their expense.
Selling Horse Meat as Beef: Buyer Beware, Too?
In my last article I wrote about stores selling products past their best before date—such as the expired canned lobster pate, which raised demands for legislation against selling expired food products in Canada. I argued that such legislation would be a violation of...
Consumer Protection: Regulation vs. Reputation
A Canadian woman recently bought a can of lobster pate at a Wal-Mart store. The pate was about a year and half past its best before date, and the woman claimed that she felt ill about four hours after consuming some of the pate. In this era of the nanny state, the...
Post-Sandy: A Man-Made Disaster
It is intolerable that their people be made to suffer the effects of disastrous legislation piled on top of a natural disaster and thereby needlessly enlarging and extending the effects of the natural disaster.
The Protection Racket of Occupational Licensing
Across the nation, millions of entrepreneurial Americans seek to create jobs, pursue their passion, or simply make a few extra dollars by starting their own business. But often, they are forced to abandon their dreams, not because they lack talent or capital, but...
Building Safely without Government Building Codes
Most people accept building codes as a necessary government intervention. One Website states: Codes provide minimum standards for building construction in order to safeguard the public’s safety, health, and welfare. Another Website states: If we searched we could find...
According to the FDA: Americans are Idiots
As an adult, have you ever been forced to eat or drink anything against your will? Have you ever been coerced into eating a bacon cheeseburger and a mountain of fries? Have you ever been compelled to drink one more beer than you should? What you put into your mouth...
Freedom versus Regulation
If a survey were taken, what would receive the lowest scores for quality, price, and value: The post office The state of our roads The quality of public education The price of gasoline Energy bills Wall Street Congress Chances are good that all of these would receive...
Regulations Punish the Virtuous
We are often told that government regulations are necessary to protect consumers from unscrupulous businesses: The only thing worse than regulations is the absence of them. Without government regulation, how can you know if food, water, medicine, everything you use in...
Government Regulation is Killing Business
I received a letter from a businessman who had been strangled by government regulations. As he puts it, "I lost two companies due to the state's regulators and federal regulators misconduct." Fed up, he moved his company to Texas where the climate is...
"Good" Government Regulations?
Obama says that the government can eliminate "burdensome" rules, but America's businesses must recognize the "good" that regulations do. What is the standard of "good" here? Good to whom, and why? If regulations are good for businesses and customers, then why must...
Use Bankruptcy Courts Not More Financial Regulation
"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." Ronald Reagan considered those nine words the most terrifying in the English language. And the government has been offering a lot of such help lately. Most recently, of course, is the trillion-dollar health care bill...