crony capitalism

The big government cronyism racket – is absurd. It is a disjointed, discombobulated mess of ridiculous ideas and assertions – put forward in steadfast defiance of the fundamentals of the free market and human nature.

How we power our nation should be, like everything else, as free market as possible. May the most effective, cheapest energy sources win

President-elect Donald Trump ran in part against the business-as-usual cronyism that has for decades been rampant in Washington, D.C. His pledge to “Drain the Swamp” resoundingly resonated – and helped propel him to the presidency.

Why have prices fallen so low? Because government subsidies created a glut – and the market is flooded. This government money warps and distorts the marketplace – as otherwise productively-directed time and effort is instead spent chasing the government coin. Producers produce not what the marketplace needs – but for what the government pays.

Once again, government will get to decide which industries, companies, workers and families win – and which one lose. We just get to pay.

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Kenneth Artz, managing editor of Health Care News speaks with Jeff Stier. Stier s a Senior Fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington D.C. where he heads its Risk Analysis Division. Stier joins Artz to discuss the FDA’s new food labeling law, a law which will require most food establishments in the United States to list calorie counts for their food items.

It’s the first school year most parents have heard about Common Core. And they don’t like it one bit.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), the unelected oversight group created by the Dodd-Frank Act to monitor and regulate firms deemed to pose systemic risk to the economy (ie. “too big too fail”), has decided begun to expand its remit beyond what even the law’s authors had imagined.

The myriad executive branch Departments, Agencies, Commissions and Boards have been in omni-directional fashion vastly exceeding their authority – doing things that are clearly the Constitutional purview of (amongst other others) the legislative and judicial branches.

John Feehery’s piece here on the dangers of rising Republican skepticism for big business is an amusing read, not just because I’m pretty sure nearly every sentence of it can be debunked in whole or in part. The tone is one of desperate confusion: when did the Republican Party stop being knee-jerk pro-business in the subsidies and carveouts and bailouts sense? Why do they want to kill the jobs of hardworking K Street influence peddlers?

The Media Marxist Left pushing the terrible Internet policy known as Network Neutrality oft are absurdly called “consumer groups.”

The Spain-based company, Abengoa Solar, claims to be “a global leader in solar thermal energy.” Its website boasts: “Abengoa Solar is the largest solar plant operator worldwide.” Abengoa went public in October 2013, and since, its stock price has doubled. With the support the White House gives to solar energy and the mandates for renewable energy present in the majority of states, Abengoa sounds like a solid investment. And, that’s the image Abengoa has burnished with full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal to encourage investment. However, rather than a “buy,” Abengoa should be a “sell”—sell quickly—as its American run could be coming to a close.

Crony Socialism is, in part, the government cutting special deals for certain companies – at the expense of other companies, and the free market. It is particularly pathetic when companies publicly troll for this treatment. It’s almost as if they’ve given up on actually, you know, trying.