There is always some great excuse for the trashing of the human freedom that built civilization as we know it. If the state cannot find one, it is glad to invent one. A population that is ideologically gullible or afraid for its security will permit government to run roughshod over rights and liberties.
Government is a gang of thieves writ large. Let's look at the reality.
The last few years as an executive in a manufacturing company gave me a frighteningly close look at the inner workings of regulators in our government. Maybe I'm just naïve, but what I discovered was shocking. They are not "creating jobs" or "improving the economy" — precisely the opposite.
The meltdown of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 didn't begin the crisis; it was a model of how all troubled firms should have been handled. Had this policy been followed from the beginning, I have little doubt that the downturn would already be over and we would not have added to the debt problem.
In the 73 years since the passage of the FLSA, the federal minimum wage has been increased 28 times and decreased only once (in 1963).
In an unhampered free-market system, the Ricardo effect is benign and progressive. It is just an interesting observation.
After decades of strict laws regulating when stores can open and close in Germany, the laws are progressively liberalizing.
The Roosevelt administration proposed and Congress enacted an unparalleled outpouring of laws that significantly attenuated private-property rights.
