Category Archives: Monopolization / Regulation
A St. Patrick’s Day Farewell to Intrade
This past November, 26th, I posted the following short piece to this blog. For several years, I and others have pointed to Intrade.com as a premier forecasting tool, a betting market or prediction market. Take a look at this blog’s archives in the category “Prediction Markets.” Intrade has been far more accurate at predicting elections [...]
Obama’s own former adviser gives thumbs down on pushing up the minimum wage
Here is a thoughtful critique of the President’s minimum wage proposal, and this is from his former Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer that appeared in the New York Times on 3-2-13. Of course, a few days ago, I posted this piece on the minimum wage here on Bastiat’s Bastions. So, [...]
Romer, new theory of economic growth theory, and patent wars
One contender for this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics is Stanford economist Paul Romer, son of a Colorado governor. You should note that Romer is the developer of “Aplia,” a homework, quizzing, and practice software system that he sold a few years ago to Cengage. Aplia is the homework and quizzing software that is currently [...]
Maintaining the ability to price discriminate by changing property rights
Once you buy something, is it really yours? If it were yours, wouldn’t you be able to resell it if you wanted to? These are questions at the heart of a new case before the U.S. Supreme Court that you can read about here. The case involves something that many college students should be able [...]
Governor calls with last minute reprieve for California drivers
Just as many California drivers thought they were being sent to their doom with prices nearing $6 a gallon at some stations, California’s Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown has called on California’s air quality regulators to allow an early switch to the less strict winter blend of gasoline, a blend that produces smog more easily than the [...]
Baptists and Bootleggers, Damon and the UAE
Matt Damon has proven over and over to be a talented actor and screenwriter. In December, he will be coming out with a pro-environmental movie about fracking to extract natural gas and petroleum from certain rock structures, a movie titled Promised Land. No doubt, Matt Damon is an environmentalist–he believes in this new project. A [...]
New School Lunch Program Highlights the Coordination Problem
In trying to tackle the youth obesity problem in the country, Michelle Obama championed a change in the school lunch program, a program that places new restrictions on the calories from school lunches as well as mandates nutrition guidelines for school lunch programs. The new calorie guidelines are based on the average student at various [...]
Drug laws, prohibition and rent seeking
One of my facebook friends, Will Harvard, a very bright recent graduate of Columbus State University, in Georgia, just posted as his status this quote from a web pamphlet, Speaking out against drug legalization (p. 9) on the DEA’s website at: http://www.justice.gov/dea/demand/speak_out_101210.pdf One favorite argument of those who claim prohibition didn’t work point to the [...]
Protecting consumers from life-saving drugs
Recently, I posted a short blog article: Shortages of life-saving drugs but not of illegal recreational drugs? A House oversight committee has issued a report about the causes of these continued shortages. While my explanation of the shortages being due to the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) is a critical part of the explanation, another explanation [...]
Morticians, monopolies and manufacturing monks
Industry groups often find competition annoying (and costly) and wish to increase their profits by getting rid of the source of irritation through regulation. Far from being created to help consumers, most regulations are attempts to restrict competition in their industry. Various occupation groups seek licensure restrictions, piling requirement upon requirement, and often, some requirements have less to do [...]