Mises Daily

Now that the hoopla and the hosannahs from Camp David have died down, we are in a position to evaluate what actually happened there, and what the agreements portend for the future of the Middle East.

"The London merchants were not, however, content with free-market development, and power began to move in on the market. Specifically, the London merchants began to reach for export monopoly."

Unless Hugo Chavez's government suddenly ends spending and returns to a free market, the most likely conclusion to current events in Venezuela is a crisis of interventionism, as the bolívar collapses and the government finds it more and more difficult to fund itself.

"The Bank of England has been reduced to the position of a part of the machinery for the manufacturing of political money in any quantity that may be required."

The only solution to increasing costs is to eliminate government interference in the market and to allow the price mechanism to work as it should.

"When something becomes illegal, consumer demand does not vanish."

Today, as always, the general citizenry needs to understand economic principles and to recognize economic fallacies.

It happens in every single economic exchange that is undertaken by virtue of human choice. Both sides benefit.

"It is vain, however, to call simply for clearer statutory definitions of monopolistic practice. For the vagueness of the law results from the impossibility of laying down a cogent definition of monopoly on the market."

That will give the FTC far greater power to block mergers than the statutory text or Supreme Court precedents permit.