Where are the limits of federal power? Vance is positing a situation in which the government must grant implicit or explicit approval of every merger and acquisition involving an American company.
Category: Economics
Government Project: The Eternal Folly of Central Planning
Americans do not readily embrace government-imposed collectivization. “Community,” in the Tocquevillian sense — voluntary associations which comprise the fabric of civil society — cannot be manufactured or externally imposed; civic cooperation must be organic.
Tipping Point: CBO Director’s Warning on America’s Fiscal Path
The CBO projects [interest] payments to the U.S. government’s creditors will rise to $1 trillion in 2026. The U.S. government’s gross interest payments to its creditors started exceeding that level in 2023. If not for a Supreme Court ruling rejecting student loan forgiveness last year, the U.S. government’s net interest costs would soon be nearing that $1 trillion level.
China’s Economic Facade is Cracking
[China] is reaping the whirlwind of conscious decisions on Beijing’s part over the past 15 years to embrace more state-centric economic policies. …Problems, however, are to be expected when the government plays a heavy-handed role in directing investment — a process which steadily accelerated in China after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.
Uber and Lyft Drive Out of the Twin Cities
Left to their own devices, employers and workers will inevitably come to an answer that serves both of their interests. But that sort of mutually beneficial arrangement has never made politicians all that happy, as it invariably proves that people don’t need them all that much.
Dynamic Pricing Puts the “Fast” Back in Fast Food
Every fast-food restaurant already has a form of dynamic pricing… You pay in the next-highest-valued use of your time, also known as opportunity cost.
Predictable pricing does not mean predictable cost, which includes things like wait times at the drive-thru.
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Digital Trade Version)
Why is the US Trade Representative opening the door to other countries slapping tariffs on e‑commerce that benefits American workers, American businesses, and American consumers?
https://www.cato.org/blog/why-we-cant-have-nice-things-digital-trade-version
How Rich People Create Poverty
The real gains come from people moving to where their labor is more valuable — and that’s in high-income countries like the United States. The problem is, we rich Westerners won’t let them come. We consign them to lives of low productivity and the attendant poverty by building walls and saying, “No foreigners allowed.” The kicker? We impoverish ourselves in the process. We impoverish ourselves by keeping markets from working and, therefore, keeping others poor.
https://www.aier.org/article/how-rich-people-create-poverty/
Why Is Panera Exempted From California’s New Minimum Wage Law?
Probably because Greg Flynn, who operates 24 of the bakery cafes in California, is a longtime friend of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The deeper lesson is that giving the government more power to set wages (or regulate other aspects of the economy) creates the conditions for exactly this sort of thing to happen…
And the more the government does that, the more opportunities there will be for officials to reward their friends and punish their enemies.
https://reason.com/2024/02/28/why-is-panera-exempted-from-californias-new-minimum-wage-law/
Friedrich Hayek’s Legacy for the 2024 Election
Government failures are worse than any perceived market failures.
Taking a cue from Hayek, we should strive for more free trade agreements, especially with our allies, which means an end to all tariffs and other barriers. We should also enact market-based immigration policies that balance national security concerns with the economic advantages of attracting talent from diverse backgrounds.