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 already bought and...
MARKETS
The Economics of Caring vs. Uncaring
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 getting done? How about...
Oily Politicians II: Politicians Play on Consumer Ignorance of Economics
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 -- and...
The Real Friends and Enemies of Wage Earners: An Intellectual Challenge to the Left
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.
Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly
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 of what was being...
Where Would General Motors Be Without the United Automobile Workers (UAW) Labor Union?
What the UAW has done, on the foundation of coercive, interventionist labor legislation, is bring a once-great company to its knees.
Offshoring and Balance of Trade Deficits
Offshoring has not resulted in a decline in the American economic system but just the opposite.
Production Versus Consumption
There are two fundamental views of economic life which give rise to two systems of economic thought.
Alan Greenspan’s Record as FED Chairman: Better Than Predecessors, Not As Good as Gold
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 Street strategists. The...
Antitrust Incentives for Legalized Looting
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. antitrust...
Gas Prices and Price Controls
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 of what...
How To Cure Inflation
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 heightened fears...
Price Controls
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...
Recycled “Racism Gap” in the Mortgage Market
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...
Economic Lunacy: The Beneficial Aspects of Hurricane Destruction
The mythical economic claims of beneficial aspects of hurricane destruction.
The Human Price of California’s Statist Housing Policies
They say time is money but a lot depends on whose time and whose money. For example, in California the San Mateo County Planning Commission has spent five years deciding what can and cannot be done with the site of an old racetrack that is no longer economically...
Presumed Guilty: The Injustice and Destruction of Sarbanes-Oxley
Sarbanes-Oxley is a moral and economic atrocity. It is past time to repeal this monstrous law and start treating businessmen as American citizens: innocent until proven otherwise.
The Truth About Coercive Labor Unions
Where the closed shop unions hold sway, companies cannot compete. Their market share falls and they ultimately go bankrupt. The only way that coercive unions can maintain any given share of the labor force is by finding new victims to replace the ones they have sucked dry.
Organized Theft: Sustainable Development, Smart Growth and Kelo
The United States was built on the very premise of the protection of private property rights. How can a government possibly be allowed to take anyone’s home for private gain?
Housing Bubbles
The blazing-hot topic at suburban cocktail parties this spring is whether there's a bubble in the residential housing market. No wonder. In 2004, existing home prices rose faster than in any year since the 1970s. Some markets are going bonkers. Alexandria, Va., is up...
Draft Equals Moral Bankruptcy
Opinion surveys have indicated that a growing number of young people and their parents are wary of the Army's recruiting pitch at a time when soldiers in Iraq are killed and wounded virtually every day. Spring is typically one of the more difficult periods of the year...
The Freedom To Move as an International Problem
There are extensive tracts of land, comparable to those in Europe, which are sparsely settled. The United States of America and the British dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and so on, are less heavily populated, in comparison with their...
Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly
Senators Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rick Santorum, R-Pa., both introduced proposals to increase the minimum wage from its current $5.15 an hour. Sen. Kennedy's proposal would have raised the minimum wage to $7.25 in three steps over 26 months, while Sen. Santorum's...
Dishwasher Economics
With TV cameras in tow, Channel 11 stopped at our restaurant last Tuesday to ask the afternoon kitchen crew how it felt about the new $52 occupation tax. Not surprisingly, no one liked it. Also not surprisingly, not much of the half-hour of filming ended up on TV,...
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