We can have cheap prices for a scarce commodity and its sudden disappearance as everyone uses it up, or we can have higher prices that make it available to those willing to pay for it. There is nothing in between.
Category: Alternatives to Forced Participation
Why We Need Markets for Justice
Richard Ebeling once told me, “Government makes criminals of us all.” Government sets up society so that no person can live a life without using some sort of government service, paid for through coerced taxes. I later came to realize that government needs to make moral cowards of us all, in order to keep us dependent on it for the dispensation of justice.
Legislation Can’t Fix Imperfect Information
Perhaps someone discovers that she’s paid less for approximately the same job that another performs elsewhere, though both may have approximately the same skills, experience, and ambition. This doesn’t mean the employer had any malicious intent, rather that the employer and employee made a voluntary agreement based on their information and what the company could offer.
“Price-Gouging” is Necessary, and Noble
This article by Thomas Sowell from 2004 remains strikingly wise, lucid and elegant, so much so that I always remember it when reading of “price-gouging” accusations.
Two Minutes Hate, At Least
The mindset is prevailing, I fear, that if a person isn’t actively part of the multitudes condemning, blasting and otherwise speaking negatively about something, then the person must be one of “them” or at least a sympathizer.
Those Who Think Nothing of Voting Us into Compliance
It seems the government’s monopoly on education has finally eroded enough common sense over the decades that many can seriously argue that to pin blame on two sides is somehow excusing one, as if blame is somehow a rivalrous, consumable good.
Not Everyone is Worth Minimum Wage
Advocacy of any minimum wage is predicated on the economic ignorance that every employee’s value is worth at least that minimum. I was thinking on the drive home that a $15 minimum wage would apply to the two imbeciles who wasted my time this morning.
Blaming Progress for So-Called Inequality
It’s bad enough when liberals are Luddites, but it’s far worse when they’re anti-tech because not everyone can have it. If they had their way, never mind cell phones or flat-screen TVs: they’d have torn down the first hut that anyone built, demanding that it be available to all instead of just the few.
The Rate of Service Must Slow
Many people don’t think about how much data they use, so they’ll use things even more heavily once a plan is “unlimited.” There’s only so much bandwidth to go around.
Threatening People with Fines and Jail
A question on Quora: “Why are so many American conservatives against the systems that are so effective in countries such as Finland and Denmark?”