Fascinating story on Yahoonews today. “Paradise for $20.” The nation of Venezuela was once a thriving, hard-working industrious outpost in South America. Then the country went hard-core socialist, with the elections of Hugo Chavez for more than a decade. Chavez nationalized industries, drove out evil capitalists, and took command of the Venezuelan economy. Rationing, shortages, …
Category: Unfree Markets
Jun 04
The Government’s TSA Screening Fails 95 Percent of the Time
by Dr. Roger I. Roots Back in 2003, I authored a peer-reviewed article entitled “Terrorized Into Absurdity: The Creation of the Transportation Security Administration.” See here. (Scroll down.) I predicted that the TSA (which was brand new at that time) would cost 6 times more than the private-screening efforts that had previously operated at America’s …
Apr 24
Federal Employees Are Now so Overpaid that Federal Agencies Set Job Applicant Limits
Statistically, a federal employee is more likely to die than to quit. Federal employees are paid so much that many hundreds–or even thousands–of applicants now apply for some federal openings, such as openings in the U.S. Postal Service. In the private sector, this would signal a basic “supply versus demand” solution: wages would be adjusted …
Apr 13
State of New York Launches Job Creation Program, Spends Almost $700,000 Per Job “Created”
In the dreams of socialists everywhere, they wield the wand of government power and their goals are met magically. Consider the constant attempts of government supremacists to launch “job creation” programs by diverting money taken by force from taxpayers into various schemes and agencies. In New York, the governor launched a “Startup NY” program, providing …
Apr 03
Economist Robert Wenzel: Water is Just Like Any other Commodity; If Markets Were Free, Prices Would Quickly Eliminate Scarcity
Because governments have generally taken over control of water, consumers are confused and often oblivious to the true costs of the commodity. Municipalities sometimes divert BILLIONS OF DOLLARS taken from taxpayers into water delivery systems; yet consumers view their tapwater as “free.” If private sector entrepreneurs were allowed to provide water in a free market, …
Apr 03
Except for rich, Americans’ incomes fell last year
Washington (AFP) – Most Americans’ incomes have fallen for two straight years, but the richest 20 percent saw theirs rise, a new Labor Department report showed Thursday. A combination of government policies, especially government licensing laws that keep as many as 30 percent of adult males from working in rewarding professions, along with rising government-imposed …
Mar 27
A Lesson in Unintended Consequences: “Anti-Terrorist” Laws Caused the Deaths of 150 People in European Jet Crash
The best solution to social problems is almost always for politicians to do nothing. As the great economic thinker Julian Simon demonstrated in his books, humans will solve all their problems if they are left free. But policymakers and government trusters tend to insist on political “solutions.” Now we learn that the deaths of 150 …
Mar 21
Decades of Extravagant Spending on Public Education Have Produced Few Good Results
Cato Institute’s Daniel Mitchell describes U.S. spending on public schools in this way: “Never Have so Many Paid so Much to Achieve so Little.” Incredibly, Americans are made to pay more for schooling than the parents of any other society. Yet American students–ranked head to head with students in other countries–perform very poorly. The graph …
Mar 14
Seattle City Council Enacts $15 Minimum Wage in 2014, By 2015, Restaurants Respond With “higher menu prices, cheaper, lower-quality ingredients, reduced opening times, and cutting work hours and firing workers”
The Seattle minimum-wage hike will go into effect incrementally over the next several years. Observers are predicting that numerous businesses will shut their doors. Stay tuned! Here is the link.
Mar 14
A Broken Model of Service Delivery: Gigantic Increases in Government Education Spending Have Had No Positive Impact on Student Performance
Government education is a monstrous failure by any measurement. This graph shows that while government spending in education has increased faster than inflation for decades, ALL MEASUREMENTS OF EDUCATION OUTCOMES–whether SAT scores, standardized-test outcomes, or basic reading or math performances–HAVE SHOWN NO IMPROVEMENT. The graph is from the Cato Institute.
