Lynne Kiesling Adam Thierer of the Mercatus Center on corporate welfare, and why he doesn’t like the phrase “crony capitalism”: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LYOlQDqfXY] Here’s Adam arguing against a proposal to nationalize Facebook “to protect user rights”.
Lynne Kiesling Whether the topic is retail sales or higher education (or some other application), the role of digital technology raises the question of how, if at all, online activity substitutes for physical, face-to-face activity. That relationship differs case-to-case; you wouldn’t expect the effects of online shopping on bricks-and-mortar shops to have the same patterns …
Lynne Kiesling Whether or not you’ve read Leonard Read’s famous essay I, Pencil, I recommend this short video rendition, courtesy of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYO3tOqDISE] It captures poetically the fascinating, marvelous coordination that we achieve through markets, enabling prosperity and well-being beyond what we would each individually be able to achieve alone. And at …
Lynne Kiesling The disruptive digital innovations that have transformed music, movies, and news are now changing business models in higher education. This month’s Cato Unbound features a set of essays on the possible effects of changes like universities offering MOOCs (massive online open courses) at zero price. In the lead essay, Alex Tabarrok argues that …
Lynne Kiesling I hope you are enjoying a fun and relaxing holiday weekend! I’ve been using it, among other things, to catch up on my reading, made more enjoyable by two new additions to the rotation: askblog: Arnold Kling has started blogging again, this time at his own new site. Given that his tagline is …
Michael Giberson A graphic illustrating states with price gouging laws (blue) and states without them (gold). For a list of the states with citations and related notes, see my earlier “List of States With Anti-Price Gouging Laws.” So far as I know, the only serious attempt to explain why some states do have price …
Lynne Kiesling I cannot recommend highly enough the EconTalk conversation between Russ Roberts and Mike Munger on price gouging. Some hurricane, some gasoline, some John Locke, some Aquinas, well worth your time. Their discussion of Locke is fascinating. The comments from readers/listeners are also quite good. On the same topic, Art Carden posts a useful …
Michael Giberson The New York Attorney General’s office takes action against 13 gas station owners in the state for price gouging. Like last week’s prompt response by New Jersey, this is unusually quick work for price gouging cases. A few quotes from the AG’s press release: NEW YORK – Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today …
New York State Also Moves Quickly on Price Gougers Read More »
Michael Giberson Earlier this week the International Energy Agency released their annual World Energy Outlook, and new is a forecast that the United States would surpass Russian and Saudi Arabia to once-again become the world’s largest oil producer, sometime around 2020. The news set off a wave of happy press, i.e. the Wall Street Journal, …
Before Getting Too Excited About the Iea’s Forecast of Us Oil Production Leadership… Read More »
Michael Giberson Edward McAllister and David Sheppard, with Reuters, have a great story on the connection between disaster preparedness and the nature of retailer ownership. They report that corporately-owned retailers, such as convenience-store chain WaWa and vertically-integrated gasoline refiner/retailer Hess, drew on corporate resources in advance of the storm to be ready to return stores …
Gasoline Supply Chain Stories in Post-sandy New Jersey and New York Read More »
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