market

Critics of libertarians seem to worry most about our full-throated endorsement of and enthusiasm for the proven benefits of unhindered free-market competition. They believe that we are cynically defending a corrupt system of power and privilege, carrying water for capitalism’s exploiter class. There is, they argue, a need for governments, ostensibly pledged to “the greater good,” to intervene to counteract some of the perceived undesirable side effects of the free market system, which they say moves society toward inequitable accumulations of wealth in the hands of a few.

Congratulations to Google on Pokemon Go. Google’s parent company Alphabet incubated and spun out this latest highly successful data-collection-device – for sale to advertisers everywhere.

The FDA wasn’t wrong to regulate e-cigarettes. It was wrong to effectively ban, by its own estimate, up to 98.5% of the e-cigarettes on the market today.

The United States has lapsed into aristocracy, the New Class — the politically connected “enemies of promise” — standing in the way of the free market reforms that could make America the home of social mobility once again. This is among the central theses of a thought-provoking and inspiring new book from George Mason University law professor F.H. Buckley, whose The Way Back challenges us, perhaps audaciously, to pursue socialist ends through capitalist means.

On today’s Health Care News Podcast, Tennessee state Rep. Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) joined Health Care News Managing Editor Michael Hamilton to explain why reforming Tennessee’s certificate of need (CON) laws will go far to improve health care quality, lower costs, and increase access for patients.

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Charles Steele, the Herman and Suzanne Dettwiler Chair in Economics at Hillsdale College in Michigan, joins Managing Editor of Environment & Climate News H. Sterling Burnett. Steele joins Burnett to talk about research he conducted showing the benefits of increased natural gas supplies to the farm economy.

Last Monday was Presidents Day. But that holiday is relatively new – an amalgamation of the birthdays of George Washington (President #1, February 22) and Abraham Lincoln (President #16, February 12). It is now a day set aside to celebrate all American Commanders-in-Chief.

Supporters of education reform who advocate for government-funded choice mechanisms, such as vouchers, tend to argue the problems in K–12 schools in the United States are primarily economic matters, not pedagogical. This view is validated by much data, but the concept ought to be extended further to say the economic marketplace in which K–12 education operates needs more than vouchers to become as efficient as it needs to be to deliver a quality education to each and every child.

Nevada’s public utilities watchdog appears to be refereeing the impasse between Warren Buffett-owned NV Energy and several Nevada casinos with the expertise and objectivity of a professional wrestling referee. This brings up a question: Why is the Nevada Public Utilities Commission giving away the candy store to out-of-state (and misnamed) NV Energy while vindictively sticking it to Nevada’s largest job creator?

Environmentalists like a good crisis. Spreading fear is a proven fundraising technique—with manmade climate change as the fear du jour. But, back in 2005, the “looming crisis,” according to the Kansas Sierra Club, was the end of cheap oil. The post concludes: “The end of cheap oil, followed by the end of cheap natural gas, threatens to cripple strong economies and devastate weak ones.” The author posits: “The world burns oil faster than new oil is discovered.”

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Greg Lawson, a policy analyst with The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions joins Managing Editor Jesse Hathaway to talk about a bill reforming the state’s occupational licensing rules for cosmetologists.

Personal choice and freedom of association are two fundamental and essential principles of any truly free society, and this includes a free market workplace. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is spending taxpayer dollars to undermine those principles in other countries around the world.

Google is cleverly and stealthily leveraging a Google-friendly-FCC and lax U.S.-Google antitrust enforcement to extend its global Android mobile operating system dominance to increasingly disintermediate and dominate the spectrum administration function embedded in the firmware of smartphones, connected cars, and Internet of Things devices.