Topic: Government

Authoritarianism, Government, Property Rights

Innocence Doesn’t Matter When the Government Wants to Steal Your Money

– January 11, 2023

“If we truly believe that Americans should be considered innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until proven innocent, then we need to end the scourge of civil asset forfeiture entirely.” ~ Joe Setyon

Economic Education, Free Markets, Government, Inflation

Wage and Price Controls Are Not the Answer to Inflation

– January 10, 2023

“If the US imposed economy-wide price controls, as Krugman proposes, it would not stop inflation, just as the Emperor Diocletian’s economy-wide controls did not stop Roman inflation and just as the 1970s economy-wide controls did not stop US inflation.” ~ Raymond C. Niles

Government, Taxation, Technology

Taxation in the Data Economy: The ‘Invisible’ Competition

– January 9, 2023

“It remains to be seen whether data experts and policymakers will come up with a tax that encapsulates ‘fairness, certainty, convenience, and efficiency’ as Adam Smith argued for, but each idea is worth hearing in today’s data-governed market.” ~ Virginia Fournari & April Liu

Authoritarianism, Government, Technology

The Twitter Files: Lenin Would Be Proud

– January 8, 2023

“When your main mission is to do the bidding of the state, rather than serving consumers in the voluntary marketplace, you are not really a private company in the true sense of the term. Your company is not a market phenomenon.” ~ Brian Balfour

Economic Education, Government, Science

Three Errors Paul Ehrlich Keeps Making

– January 7, 2023

“In Ehrlich’s worldview, humanity only transgresses and can only cause harm. In Simon’s view, humanity takes primacy and the sources of its enrichment also repair many harms done to the environment, and eventually allows improvements.” ~ Vincent Geloso

Education, Government, Technology

Goodhart’s Law Explains School Decay

– January 5, 2023

“By disentangling ourselves from measures and rankings, we can return to a focus on what education does for the human mind, not just the data sheets.” ~ Laura Williams

Fiscal Policy, Foreign Aid, Government, War and Peace

When Federal Interest Payments Come to Exceed the Military Budget: Time to Stop Defending the Rest of the World

– January 5, 2023

“The US economy no longer can sustain a policy of endless war. Rising interest rates highlight the dismal state of Uncle Sam’s finances. Fiscal reality, as well as good sense, tells the US to focus on its own security.” ~ Doug Bandow

Free Trade, Government, Regulation

Economic Reality Is Far Too Complex to Be Improved By Trade Restrictions

– January 4, 2023

“Unlike market participants guided by prices, politicians and administrators literally have no reliable information to guide them. They will therefore be guided exclusively by their own biases and hunches.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Economic Education, Free Markets, Government, Regulation

What Deeper Lessons Can We Learn From Southwest Airlines’ Meltdown?

– January 4, 2023

“The lesson of Southwest Airlines’ debacle is not that it was ‘dumb’ or ‘shortsighted.’ Rather, it should make all of us think more deeply about the opportunity costs and benefits of small, or marginal changes in this efficiency-resiliency tradeoff.” ~ Craig J. Richardson

Education, Government, Socialism

A Key Lesson in Education Policy: You Don’t Make Peace with Termites

– January 3, 2023

“As important as issues like taxes and regulations are, their most important (and most difficult) task is to restore control of education to people who actually want to educate.” ~ George Leef

Classical Liberalism, Government, History

Conquistadors and Indian Rights

– January 3, 2023

“Though this counters today’s understanding of colonialism generally, and the conquest in particular, the fact is that Spanish treatment of Indians in the Americas was not the monolithically brutal affair it is so often portrayed to be.” ~ Paul Schwennesen

Government, Inflation, Monetary Policy

FOMC Ratchets Up Inflation Projection

– January 2, 2023

“FOMC member projections suggest that inflation will come down only gradually over the next two to three years and that the price level will remain permanently elevated.” ~ William J. Luther