The Senate began working through President-elect Trump’s cabinet appointments this week, as Washington prepares for next week’s inauguration (which will cost taxpayers over $100 million.) One of the pressing concerns worrying libertarians is Senator Jeff Session’s view on the war on drugs, which has been one of the most successful areas for states’ rights in recent years. Obamacare has also been in the news, as the Republican Congress has begun taking steps to “repeal and replace.” Unfortunately, as Per Bylund notes:
In the present debate on Obamacare, all possible alternatives are simply a move from one interventionist economy to another, and this only distracts us from the real alternative: a radical rolling back of the state.
Of course this approach of less politics, more markets is the approach needed in all facets of America today.
On Mises Weekends this week, Jeff talks about crony capitalism with Nick Sorrentino, proprietor of AgainstCronyCapitalism.org. Jeff and Nick discuss how huge public companies — think defense giants like Lockheed Martin and Boeing — engage in an obvious form of fiscal cronyism, while Wall Street funds and investment banks engage in what we might call monetary cronyism. And they also discuss how average people reap undue benefits in a million small ways, from selling their homes in artificially overheated markets to making money from small businesses made possible only by bubbles. Is that tech startup really “worth” a $50 million payout to the founders? Thanks to the endless distortions of crony capitalism, we may never know.
Next week Dr. Mark Thornton will begin his three-part live online lecture series on the Economics of Marijuana. Dr. Thornton will explain how prohibition has changed not only the market for marijuana, but also the characteristics of the drug itself. He will also demonstrate how the best solution for the “drug problem” is the free market. Enroll today!
And in case you missed any of them, here are the articles featured this week on the Mises Wire:
- Good Economics Is “Bizarre” for Minimum Wage Supporters by Carmen Elena Dorobăț
- Beware “Revenue Neutral” Tax Reform by Ryan McMaken
- What European Integration Should Look Like by Łukasz Nieroda
- Tom Woods and Shawn Ritenour Discuss The Mises Reader
- The Fed Needs Competition, Not Rules by Tho Bishop
- Mexicans Are Blaming “Neoliberalism” for Socialism’s Failures by Ryan McMaken
- Jeff Sessions’s Drug War May End What’s Left of States’ Rights by Ryan McMaken
- Taxpayers Footing the Bill for the Inauguration Junkets by Ryan McMaken
- The “Curse” of Labor-Saving Machinery Is Nothing New by Brittany Hunter
- What’s the Correct Number of Women Commandos? by Matthew McCaffrey
- Italy Needs a Dose of Bugatti Capitalism by Marcia Christoff-Kurapovna
- Did Ludwig von Mises Create Today’s Crony Capitalism? by Hunter Lewis
- “These Deeply Momentous Things”: United States Intervention into World War I by T. Hunt Tooley
- Dollar Retreats from Highs as FOMC Stays Skittish by Ryan McMaken
- Top Five Monetary Policy Issues To Watch In 2017 by Paul-Martin Foss
- We Need Less Politics and More Private Governance by Edward Stringham
- Rothbard and Nozick by David Gordon
- Will Automation Make us Poor? by Aaron Bailey
- Top Ten Most-Read Articles in December
