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?
Regulation
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.
Crackdown on ‘Price Gouging’ Benefits Politicians and The Media
So-called “price gouging” is a gimmick used by politicians and the media to rally supporters and viewers.
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"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...
The Government's Deregulation Scapegoat
After virtually every disaster created by Beltway politicians you can hear the sound of feet scurrying for cover in Washington, see fingers pointing in every direction away from Washington, and watch all sorts of scapegoats hauled up before Congressional committees to...
Was the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis Caused by Lack of Regulations?
Did lack of regulation create the subprime mortgage crisis? I am asked this all the time. The short answer: Of course not. Nowhere close. Not a chance. Here is the long answer. What regulations have we had? The mortgage originator (your local bank or mortgage broker)...
A Proper Public Policy for Dealing with Hurricanes and Other Natural Diasters
The Katrina tragedy and the more recent experience of Hurricane Ike should call into question the so-called safety net composed of government policies that actually encourage people to embrace risks they would otherwise shun–to build in defiance of historically obvious dangers, secure in the knowledge that innocent others will be forced to share the costs when the worst happens.
Let’s Stop Making Disasters More Disastrous
No longer will government make disasters more disastrous by pretending that citizens have a right to defy the forces of nature at others’ expense.
True Deregulation for The Cable Industry
In an article on Ars Technica, a lobbyist for the cable industry is quoted as saying that deregulation allows vendors to innovate faster and is a pro-consumer move. The article's author, however, cries that past evidence shows that deregulation has always brought...
Anti-Smoking Paternalism: A Cancer on American Liberty
By employing government coercion to deprive us of the freedom to judge for ourselves what we inhale or consume, the anti-smoking movement has become an enemy, not an ally, in the quest for health and happiness.
Hazardous Safety Regulation
Whenever someone is hurt in an accident, people say, "There ought to be a law!" Politicians rush to oblige them and then take credit for all the lives they saved. But shouldn't they also accept blame for the lives lost because of those laws? Lives lost? Yes. A joint...
Anti-‘Price-Gouging’ Regulation
With gasoline prices across the nation at $3 a gallon, one knows that American oil companies are easy targets for every regulator (and every potential regulator) in town. And when an oil-man-turned-president blames Americans for having an "energy addiction," it is...
Papiere, Bitte (Papers, Please)
The people who will be stopped by the system will not be terrorists but innocent citizens, seeking to evade unjust laws and regulations.
Environmental Regulations Reduce Safety and Productivity in the Energy Industry
An explosion last week at a British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas refinery in Texas killed fifteen workers and injured seventy others, five critically. As usual, myopic media accounts blamed BP and its allegedly unsafe work conditions – and called for more intense government regulation and fines.
The People Who Brought You the Weekend
Another bumpersticker for you: "The Labor Movement--The People Who Brought You the Weekend." Not quite. Improved working conditions don't happen because a compassionate President signs them into law. If any given law would harm significant sectors of the economy, no...
Counting the Costs of Government Regulation of Land Development
A dispute about how tall the city of San Mateo, California, will allow buildings to be built may seem like a completely local problem that no one outside of San Mateo should care about. But the principle involved touches everyone from coast to coast, on issues having...
Airline Deregulation Revisited
Ever wondered how the whole airline fare system works? Why is it, for example, that the guy you sat next to on that flight to Schenectady got a fare that was half of what you paid? Why is it that fares booked a month out are cheaper than fares booked two weeks out,...
Capitalism and Job Safety
What is essential for safety is not bureaucratic regulation, but free, motivated human intelligence and judgment, which includes a consideration of the costs of achieving greater degrees of safety.
Clinton-Era IRS Regulation Threatens Economy and Financial Markets
Three days before President Bill Clinton left office, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed a regulation (No. 126100-00) that would have forced American banks to report the interest they pay on the deposits of nonresident aliens. The IRS openly admitted that the...
What Is Killing The Stock Market? Government Regulation
Politicians and economic analysts are shocked. They have told us for weeks that the stock market is crashing because of low "investor confidence" in response to a "crime wave" of corporate fraud--made possible by "a climate of lax regulation" and "the lure of heady...
Less Government Regulation and More Laissez-faire Required to Prevent Further ‘Enron’ Scandals
An unregulated free market provides the environment in which auditors who differentiate on a reputation for quality and useful disclosures could add value to their business, and their customers’.
Superfluous Airport Safety Regulations
Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta, Czar Norman, has ordered new, ill-thought out, oppressive airline regulations in the wake of recent terrorist attacks. Among them: a ban on knives -- plastic or steel -- anywhere in the airport and on airplanes, even in...
New State Regulations During ‘Deregulation’ are the Cause of California’s Energy Crisis
The attacks against deregulation of the California power industry by the enemies of capitalism are attacks against a straw man. Deregulation means that government removes onerous regulations that violate the rights of producers and consumers to trade freely (markets...