Prices

Dale Steinreich's June article about the centenary of the founding of the American Medical Association caused a tremendous uproar. Here is his answer to critics.

Market prices for water? Would that mean the end of some farms in California and elsewhere in the West? Yes, says William Anderson, that is exactly what that means. The government has engaged in egregiously wasteful policies in order to politically distribute water.

It is entirely within coffee-bean buyers' rights to pay any price, including an inflated price, writes Joesph Potts.

With gas prices soaring, an old fallacy has been renewed, writes William Anderson.

It is time for the energy alarmists to have their moment in the sun, writes Mark Brandly.

We have heard all the claims 10,000 times, and here William Anderson deals with the main ones.

The government has no business stockpiling anything, including oil. But when three socialist amigos like Senators Charles Schumer of New York, Barbara Boxer of California and Harry Reid of Nevada all urged the Bush administration recently to help ease gasoline prices by releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), you know what's up. These three are all facing the voters come November, and they know from their many years in politics that nothing agitates the boobeoisie and engenders conspiracy theories like high gas prices.

William Anderson examines the common myths of the gas price increase, and then turns to the question of why prices are as high as they are.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently announced that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.5 percent in January, its biggest increase in nearly a year. The CPI core rate, which excludes energy and food prices — like any of us can go without gasoline or food — rose 0.2 percent. Both increases surprised analysts, but normal people — people who actually pay money for goods and services — weren't surprised.

Recorded at Mises University 2003.