The article below was originally published on the website of The Intellectual Activist on April 17, 2001 shortly before an impending writers strike that was averted near the eleventh hour. Now, six years later, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) is again threatening...
Economic theory does not operate in a vacuum. Institutions, such as the property rights structure, determine how the theory manifests itself. Similarly, the law of gravity isn't repealed when a parachutist floats gently down to earth. The parachute simply affects how...
The turmoil in the credit markets now emanating from the collapse of the housing bubble can be understood in the light of the theory of the business cycle developed by Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek.
Amid all the hand-wringing and finger-pointing as housing markets collapse, mortgage foreclosures skyrocket, and financial markets panic, there is very little attention being paid to the fundamental economic and political decisions that led to this mess. The growth in...
According to the Onalaska Life Newspaper, millions of dollars worth of vouchers that were part of Microsoft's settlement of a Wisconsin class-action antitrust case remain unclaimed. The settlement requires Microsoft to make available to class members up to...
It is a minority of “activist” shareholders–together with anti-business politicians–who are shrieking about “outrageous” CEO pay packages.
The first fundamental law of demand postulates that the lower the price of something, the more will be demanded, and the higher the price, the less will be demanded. To my knowledge, there are no known exceptions to the law of demand. That was until last fall when 650...
Below is a quote from Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein excerpted a column he wrote on Google titled "How Much More Should It Be Allowed to Grab?" [P]recisely because of its success, it's fair to ask if Google should be barred from furthering its...
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? Would this count as...
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 offer...
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. Say...
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, we're all...
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: "We're very...
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.
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