Robinhood’s terms of service specify that it “may, in its discretion, prohibit or restrict the trading of securities.” That clause may or may not sufficiently cover the company’s posterior in a legal sense. But in this application, it gives lie to the company’s name and supposed mission.
Tag: profits
Families, Not the Government, Should Regulate Big Tech
Here are five ideas for turning action into agency regarding Big Tech and social media.
Walter Williams: American Contempt for Liberty (56m)
This episode features a discussion with economics professor Walter Williams from 2015. Throughout history, personal liberty, free markets, and peaceable, voluntary exchanges have been roundly denounced by tyrants and often greeted with suspicion by the general public. Unfortunately, argues Dr. Williams, Americans have increasingly accepted the tyrannical ideas of reduced private property rights and reduced rights to profits, and have become enamored with restrictions on personal liberty and control by government.
COVID-19 Lockdowns: Liberty and Science
The Chinese Coronavirus (COVID-19) hit American shores — officially, anyway, there is significant evidence that it arrived earlier — in late January 2020. The American public was then told that a two-week shutdown of the economy would “flatten the curve,” relieving the pressure on hospital intensive care units and saving lives in the long run. The average American, including conservatives,…
Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Six (25m) – Episode 385
Episode 385 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A fool believes that the market makes profits corrupting. A person of reason knows that it makes corruption unprofitable.”; “A democratic state is a device for feeding off society by pitting it against itself.”; “A fool finds intolerable the inequality of wealth between the capitalist and the laborer. A person of reason finds intolerable the inequality of rights between the state and the individual.”; “Happiness is the ability to stay intrinsically motivated to exist.”; “Aesthetic maturity is the ability to deliberately ignore the fashionable without turning it into a fashion statement.”; “A successful prediction is a mental journey to the least impossible of the future worlds.”
Progressive Policies Keep Failing
I laughed when I saw The Washington Post headline: “Minneapolis had progressive policies, but its economy still left black families behind.” The media are so clueless. Instead of “but,” the headline should have said, “therefore,” or “so, obviously.” Of course, progressive policies failed! They almost always do.
Want to Reform the Criminal Justice System? End the Drug War
“It pitted police against the communities that they serve,” says neuroscientist Carl Hart in my new video. Hart, former chair of Columbia University’s Psychology department, grew up in a tough Miami neighborhood where he watched crack cocaine wreck lives. When he started researching drugs, he assumed that research would confirm the damage drugs did.
Gouge Is Good
If you’ve bought anything in the past six weeks, you’ve seen shortages. In grocery stores, you’ve see empty shelves. Online, you’ve seen long waits. If you know econ 101, there’s an obvious explanation: price-gouging laws. When supply falls, the market’s normal reaction is to raise prices. Government’s reaction, however, is to paint the market’s normal reaction as vicious exploitation – and order prices to stay flat despite reduced supply. Shortages inevitably result. While this story has great merit, you don’t have to look closely to realize that it’s not the full story of shortages. Why not?
From Telework to Flexible Wages?
The simplest explanation is that the current recession is terrible. Quite right; maybe it’s twice as terrible as the Great Recession. But last time around, I heard zero first-hand reports of nominal wage cuts, and near-zero such stories in the news. I can understand a doubling of incidents, but not this.
Mexico: One Failed US War Doesn’t Justify Another
After several decades of US regulatory, law enforcement, and military war on drugs, the “winners” of the war remain the cartels (who rake in billions serving customers forbidden to buy what they want legally) and US government agents (who dispose of huge budgets and earn comfortable salaries while boasting little impact on drug use at either the demand or supply ends).