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Regulatory Capture: Wolves Guarding Hen Houses
Regulatory Capture is a process by which regulatory agencies become dominated and directed by the corporations or special interests they are supposed to be regulating. It’s like putting the mafia in charge of writing regulations for bookmaking. Most generally associated with Nobel laureate George Stigler and postulated as an actual theory in the early 1970’s,…
Why Fixed Interest Rates Are Bad
Given the actions of the Federal Reserve, particularly over the last twenty years or so, we have become accustomed to the fixing of interest rates as normal. Indeed, there appear to be benefits for many from such policies, at least in the near term. After all, given mortgage rates as low as 2% to 3%,…
Liberal article on food stamps and race backfires
The liberal blogosphere erupted in delight last month at a story that was first covered by Addicting Info. The story reports on 30 individuals arrested for food stamp fraud in New York. The piece is titled “30 People Arrested For Food Stamp Fraud; Guess How Many Were Black.” The answer is none. None of the…
10 Myths About FDR and The Great Depression
Photo by woodleywonderworks 1. Government Spending Ended the Great Depression A commonly held belief is that government spending stimulated the economy and eventually ended the Great Depression. Reality is excessive government spending took badly needed resources from the private sector and spent them on insolvable government programs and jobs that produced no real values. The…
The Ramifications of a Welfare State
The main problem with welfare such as unemployment benefits, or government handouts, is that it de-capitalizes the productive members of society and capitalizes unproductive members. The productive members are the entrepreneurs. Those who predict what goods consumers will demand in the future and produce them in the present. When the government imposes taxes, it takes…
Is Price Gouging Fair?
We hear about it all the time. After a natural disaster, or during times of civil unrest such that transpired recently in Ferguson, businesses price gouge items in high demand. Water or a ride away from a dangerous area become expensive commodities. The instinct is to chastise such actions as immoral and selfish. But a…

