So, whether it’s Lina Khan at the FTC or Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren in Congress, antitrust advocates should take a hard look in the mirror. The only true monopoly within the US marketplace is where these politicians are fulfilling their posts.
MARKETS
Understanding Bank Failures and the Objective Role of the Lender of Last Resort
Since government regulatory practice has gone beyond making loans to illiquid-but-solvent banks, to paying back all the deposits of insolvent banks, the result is that there is no reason for depositors to care about whether their bank is taking excessive risks.
Minimum Wage Hurts Whom It Claims to Help
If you care about the people struggling to keep their jobs in a difficult economy, you should oppose raising the minimum wage: it hurts the very people you want to help
The Amazing Benefits of International Trade
Trade allows each of us to turn our unique talents into the fruits of the talents of everyone with whom we trade.
Robert Reich’s Anti-Capitalist Rant Against The Kroger-Albertson Merger
What Robert Reich Gets Wrong about the Kroger-Albertson Merger and What He Misses Completely
National Conservatives, the American System, and the Founders
While Hamilton, who died in a duel in 1804, did indulge protectionist arguments during his stint as Secretary of the Treasury, the rebranding of Jefferson and Madison as American System enthusiasts runs directly contrary to historical evidence.
Unions Should Not Be Protected Against Suits for Deliberate Property Damage
Unions must go about their objectives of trying to organize workers without committing acts of destruction.
A Parable: Who Will Build the Roads?
The owners of private roads, those few in the know knew, would provide better roads at lower cost than Leviathan ever could.
Don’t Ask ‘Who Will Build the Roads?’ Ask ‘Do We Even Want Roads?’
What unseen effects did the “small present good” of a $558 billion highway network mask?
Microsoft-Activision Meger: Will Antitrust Undermine the Future of Online Gaming?
The future of gaming won’t be determined by the Microsoft-Activision merger. But it could very well be undermined if the FTC succeeds in blocking the merger.
Individuals, Not Government Subsidies & Tariffs, Have a Comparative Advantage at Improving Comparative Advantages
There is no plausible case to be made that for us Americans to improve our comparative advantages, we need the government to protect any of us from foreign competition, other than the protection of individual rights.
Wage and Price Controls Are Not the Answer to Inflation
Reinforcing what economic theory tells us, evidence of the harm of price controls abounds in history, from the infamous 303 A.D. Edict of Emperor Diocletian in Ancient Rome to America’s 1970s gasoline price controls and, perhaps most infamously, New York City’s disastrous eight-decade-long experiment with rent control.
Unfair Labor Practices? Why Don’t You Go Somewhere Else?
Unionized workers effectively form a cartel that would be illegal under antitrust laws as an obvious “restraint of trade” if unions had not been specifically exempted from the rules.
State Investing, Not ESG, Is the Political Problem
The problem isn’t so much that a company takes ideological considerations into account in its business practices so much as that governments — such as state-run pension funds — are imposing ideological agendas on businesses via this financial control.
Prices and Costs of Production in a Free-Market
In a free market, the prices of products tend to be governed by their costs of production.
The False Face of SBF, FTX, and ESG
FTX and its subsidiaries, guided by SBF, had as much to do with “building a flourishing future” as ESG does with “creating a livable planet.”
Proud to be a Real Estate Investor
Investors should be proud of what they do.
Modern-day Luddites
Modern-day Luddites oppose a different type of progress—gentrification.
Preservation vs. Affordable Housing
Historic preservation is a pretense for dictating how others may or may not use their property.
Free Market Solutions to the Housing Crisis
The political, economic, and moral case for a free market in housing.
Money Creation, Then And Now
One good way to understand the current monetary system is to gain a basic understanding of banking history.
U.S. Government’s War on Savings
The U.S. government has long been waging war on savings, making it the cause of, rather than the solution to, low savings rates.
Wage Rates Under Capitalism
In a free market, within the limit of his abilities, each person chooses that job which he believes offers him the best combination of money and nonmonetary considerations. In so doing, he simultaneously acts for his own maximum well-being and for that of the consumers who buy the ultimate products his labor helps to produce.
Privatize Disaster Relief
The better approach to disasters relies on private initiative, markets, and insurance instead of ineffective government bureaucracies and bloated budgets. Every aspect of disaster relief can be privatized, or rather re-privatized, and should be, if policymakers want to save lives and money.