Prices

University students are going berserk again. No, they are not swallowing goldfish, going on panty raids or stuffing themselves into phone booths, the excesses of a bygone day (the first two are now politically incorrect, and what with modern technology there is nary a phone booth to be found). Nor are they taking over deans' offices and entire college campuses in the name of stopping their institutions from buying real estate in surrounding poor communities. Nor, yet, at the moment, are they protesting in favor of the environment, or bashing free trade, other favorite activities of theirs. What, then, you may ask, are they up to nowadays? They are insisting that the university logo t-shirts and baseball caps sold in campus stores not be manufactured under sweatshop conditions, nor with contributions from child labor.

Regulations increase the price of gasoline, housing, software, and much more, says Thomas DiLorenzo. 

It is time to refute claims of gas gouging and explain (once again) that not only were these price increases inevitable, but they have been specially packaged in Washington, D.C.

Americans are concerned about the rising cost of pharmaceutical drugs. This has drawn the attention of writers, politicians, and others who have attempted to deal with the issue in typical fashion by advocating the use of government force to implement their plan.

In a display of amazing ignorance or brazen political grandstanding, he strode up to a gas station and berated the owner for charging too high a price.

Higher prices have unleashed a torrent of economic fallacy, from boycotts on gas stations to agitations for price controls. Paul Cwik responds.

We could have another on our hands if the bureaucrats get involved in regulating prices again.  

OPEC is restricting production, but it's domestic taxes and regulations that keep gas and oil prices high. 

What's behind this new less-work-for-the-same-pay legislation is the 11.4 percent unemployment rate in France, a jobless rate that's been steadily expanded by the piling on of excessive labor regulations, government-mandated benefits and overblown taxation. The miracle here, if we're to believe the French socialists, is that an unemployment crisis that's been caused by too many government regulations will now be solved by yet another regulation.

During the 1980s, just as the free market's reputation was beginning to rebound, the guardians of the national psyche discovered "workaholism." The victim of this disorder was defined as working compulsively, spending far too much time at his occupation, too little with friends or loved ones. He loses the capacity to enjoy what little leisure he allows himself, and eventually cannot even recall the point of his own frenetic activity. We were all advised to ease up, slow down, and smell the roses.