Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. – AYN RAND
Q: Under capitalism, can’t a group of a few wealthy individuals acting as a fund “manipulate” a stock, causing unaware investors to buy the stocks at inflated prices, where then wealthy individuals would dump the stocks, causing prices to collapse?...
The Democrats who now control Congress want to change President Bush’s Medicare drug benefit to require government officials to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. Under the current program, competing insurance companies cut the deals and...
There are some ideas and feelings that sound plausible but given just a wee bit of thought can be shown to border on lunacy. Let’s examine a few. Some U.S. companies have been accused of exploiting Third World workers with poor working conditions and low wages....
Remember the governments case against Microsoft? Well now Toyota has made the cardinal sin of succeeding too much in business and it appears it will meet with a similar fate.
To the extent that the government simply “caps” premiums it will result in no insurance at all as it makes for an unprofitable bet for any insurance company.
For a small-scale corn farmer driven out of business in Mexico by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the fancy economic theories about the benefits of “free trade” might not seem too believable. As the theory of comparative advantage goes,...
Repeal minimum-wage legislation, pro-union legislation, and licensing legislation. That is what will help to eliminate poverty.
The increase in the savings of the economic system as a whole must take the form of an increase in its capital assets, such as business plant, equipment, and inventories.
As more multinational corporations move into a poorer country, the people there not only get additional economic opportunities, they acquire skills and job experience that raise their productivity and earnings potential, even if that outrages the economically illiterate in Hollywood.
Science education is a frequent topic in the news these days. Earlier this month, Microsoft announced a campaign to improve math and science education in the Seattle area. According to Brad Smith, a senior vice president and general counsel for Microsoft:...
Such global “trade imbalances” are not a problem. They are a profoundly important means of preventing problems. What will cause a problem is allowing wreckers, devoid of serious knowledge of economics, to “fix” things.
Environmentalism thus stands a very strong chance of ultimately reverting to the more traditional socialism of massive government construction and engineering projects.
The principal obstacle in the way of saving and capital accumulation and thus the rise in real wages is government welfare-state spending.
There are decent people, without a selfish hidden agenda, who support increases in minimum wages as a means to help low-skilled workers, and there are other decent people, with the identical goal, who strongly oppose increases in the minimum wage. So the question is:...
It was a common political move when Chicago’s city council voted recently to impose a $10 an hour minimum wage on big-box retailers. There is nothing that politicians like better than handing out benefits to be paid for by someone else. What was uncommon was the...
Growing budget deficits are part of the explanation of profits rising relative to wages.
In defense of its virtues, in exasperation of being cut down and cut down again, Microsoft should simply declare that it seeks the abolition of antitrust, and refuse to rest until these laws are repealed–or risk fading into obscurity. If Microsoft takes this righteous stand, it will be known for both leading the PC revolution, and for leading a far greater revolution in American business.
An interesting question in economics is the proper role of statistics. Ludwig von Mises is my favourite economist, yet he held that statistics have no valid role in formulating or validating economic theory. It’s interesting to explore his reasons. First, Mises...
Here’s what one reader wrote: “Williams, I can understand how the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and Middle East political uncertainty can jack up gasoline prices. But it’s price-gouging for the oil companies to raise the price of all the gasoline...
George Orwell admonished, “Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.” That’s what I want to do — talk about the obvious, starting with the question: What human motivation leads to the most wonderful things...
One of the beauties of an economy coordinated by price movements is that nobody has to understand it in order for it to work. If vast new iron ore deposits are discovered tomorrow in Timbuktu, 99 percent of the people on this planet may be wholly unaware of it —...
Labor unions do not even know how to raise real wages. All they are concerned with is raising the money wages and protecting the jobs of the members of their particular union.
About a fortnight ago, Mrs. Williams alerted me to an episode of Oprah Winfrey’s show titled “Inside the Lives of People Living on Minimum Wage.” After a few minutes of watching, I turned it off, not because of the heartrending tales but because most...
What the UAW has done, on the foundation of coercive, interventionist labor legislation, is bring a once-great company to its knees.
Offshoring has not resulted in a decline in the American economic system but just the opposite.
There are two fundamental views of economic life which give rise to two systems of economic thought.
Alan Greenspan was Federal Reserve chairman for 18½ years — longer than the reigns of nearly half the kings and queens of England. A few years ago he was “knighted” by England’s current monarch. For years he was deified by economists and Wall...
Antirust law creates huge financial incentives-for the people who file antitrust suits. Consider the case of Lloyd Constantine’s recent award of $220 million dollars as lead plaintiffs counsel in the Visa International Service Association/MasterCard Inc....
With all the recent hype and demagoguery about gasoline price-gouging, maybe it’s time to talk about the basics of exchange. First, what is exchange? Exchange occurs when an owner transfers property rights or title to that which is his. Here’s the essence...
Last month, President Bush nominated Dr. Ben S. Bernanke, currently chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, as chairman of Federal Reserve Board to replace the retiring Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan’s replacement comes at a time of...
I first became aware of the law of gravity as a small child when I pedalled by tricycle off the porch and crashed into the yard. Gravity was of course operating all along, whether I was aware of it or not. Economics is a lot like that. Many people who are completely...
One of the things that happens when you get old is that what seems like news to others can look like a re-run of something you have already seen before. It is like watching an old movie for the fifth or sixth time. A headline in the September 14th issue of the New...
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