After very quickly becoming an advanced economy, South Korea is experiencing declining growth and labor productivity. The culprit, as usual, is government intervention in the market to favor certain interests.
Experts who predicted economic doom as Brexit approached obsessed over the problem of "transaction costs" in trade. But the EU was imposing countless new transaction costs of its own.
In spite of all kinds of restrictions and red tape, consumer demand for firearms remains high, and the industry has found a way to meet that demand—through "80 percent lower receivers."
There's a new kind of capitalism on the scene: "surveillance capitalism." It's drawn attention from across the political spectrum, but Left, Right, and center offer very different solutions to similar concerns.
Just two metro areas in Virginia reported more homicides than all the rest of the state combined.
State lawmakers possess an infinite source of good intentions. Wielding the power of this limitless benevolence and munificence, politicians are regulating the lives of citizens while eviscerating their existence in the process.
How much licensing requirements are designed to “protect” the health of the public, and how much to restrict competition, may be gauged from the fact that giving medical advice free without a license is rarely a legal offense. Only the sale of medical advice requires a license.
Since outright grants of monopoly or quasi-monopoly would usually be considered baldly injurious to the public, governments have discovered a variety of methods of granting such privileges indirectly, as well as a variety of arguments to justify these measures.
Proponents of socialized medicine assert that markets cannot be trusted with healthcare due to "market failure." But the assumed "failures" of health markets are not improved by socializing healthcare.
School children learn that there are three branches of government. In actual practice, there is a fourth branch, the permanent bureaucracy which includes legions of civilian and military agents, officers, and administrators committed to protecting their own interests.
