What’s discouraging about the statism of this piece from wired.com is how reflexive and totally unexamined it is. The assumption that government intervention is required or even desirable is hardly stated, much less examined or questioned. It is, rather, proceeded from without further ado.
That hoary term so reviled by market economists, “shortage,” has become the sure tip-off to calls for government intervention.
Parallels with the effects of government involvement with the railroad industry in the Nineteenth Century would no doubt exceed by far any interest in or understanding of history that the journalist might have. Might we have to hope for jealous producers of silicon in other WTO member countries to help us avoid this folly? How ironic.