Economists talked blithely of privatizing Iraqi assets, writes Joseph Stromberg, without considering the bureaucratic implications of the method, the motivations of the public authorities, the long and disgraceful history of imposing a pre-set view of what constitutes a free market, and the reality that dividing up assets in a conquered country is probably contrary to international law. There are better ways to bring freedom to the world.
Back when the pegged currency was deemed to provide the only bastion of stability during the Asian crisis, and hence, a stable economy for which to sell American goods, no one cared a whit about establishing a "free market" for the Chinese yuan. While no one is ever safe so long as Congress is in session and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is occupied, this administration's policy, more so than any other in recent history, has been "buy here, sell elsewhere."
With gasoline prices rising to their highest levels in years, and then dipping again after Labor Day, it was inevitable that the politicians would come out of the woodwork and demand yet another costly investigation of the U.S. oil industry. The reason is not scheming industry executives or incompetent managers. Politicians and the bureaucrats they empower, on the other hand, have caused major disruptions to oil supplies. Let us count the ways.
There is almost complete unanimity among economists that the most important role of the central bank is to attain price level stability. It is held that price stability promotes economic growth and people's well being by increasing the efficiency of the market mechanism. In fact, Austrians are correct to see that such a policy redistributes resources and generates instability.
Drug reimportation is not a panacea, nor is it likely to have any long-term effect upon the rising costs of prescription drugs. It is at best a temporary fix for those most in need of lower priced drugs. What will have a lasting impact, however, is the extent to which the entirety of the Washington conservative and libertarian alliance was willing to bypass the larger issue of free trade.
Entrepreneurs are widely considered to be important parts of economic activity. Why would they not be studied carefully by those who are supposed to know so much about this activity? Yet actual policies in actual economies affecting actual human beings have been crafted by economists who have, for the most part, largely ignored entrepreneurial activity.
While the Federal Reserve-induced stock market bubble has been flattened, despite continuous inflating by Greenspan's troops, the land price bubble continues to expand in Las Vegas.
A few years ago, Paul Cwik came across an e-mail that was impossibly dumb. It called for a "Gas-Out." The idea was to boycott gasoline for a few days. This action would drive the price of gas down, and at the same time, it would show "Big Oil" that if they tried to raise prices again, we'd hurt them. The email is circulating again.
Artists often see themselves as underappreciated members of an elite that knows which cultural achievements are economically valuable and which are not. In actuality, profit drives businessmen to attempt a vastly more complex task: the estimation of actual consumer wants in a vastly complex and changing world.
Oil prices have reached a 29-month high, reflecting a variety of factors including the prospects for war. At the same time, the Producer Price Index recorded a 1.6 percent jump in January, the biggest across-the-board increase since January 1990. Just as the script dictates, writes Lew Rockwell, cries of "gouging" are now heard across the land.
