[Editor’s note: this is an English version of a German-language interview published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute Deutschland. The interviewer is Andreas Marquart, the institute’s executive director. Antony Mueller is a professor of economics in Brazil, so we have reprinted the interview here to provide readers with another local perspective on the recent election.]
There has been a long line of critics of American health care claiming that international comparisons of life expectancy and infant mortality rates provide supposedly irrefutable proof of the need for more government control of our health care system.
Los Angeles Times writer Michael Hiltzik recently echoed such assertions to conclude that “the U.S. stinks” in those areas. Unfortunately, though, infant mortality and life expectancy comparisons stink as health care efficiency indicators.
[From Anatomy of the State (1974).]
Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.
One of the most foundational assumptions behind modern democracy is that the elected officials somehow represent the interests of those who elected them.
The Trump Administration is preparing to restore sanctions on Iran that his predecessor lifted as part of a nuclear disarmament agreement. This week John Bolton also indicated that they were considering new sanctions on Nicaragua during a speech that lumped the Central American country with Cuba and Venezuela as the “troika of tyranny” — a new tropical-flavored version of the Axis of Evil.
As the election nears, politicians will more and more frantically point out what wonderful favors they’ve done for the voters — or what favors they will do for the voters, if elected.
Of course, they never mean all the voters. They mean groups or individuals within the voting population who believe they benefit from laws, taxes, regulations, and spending programs supported by the politician in question.
Candidates in this year’s elections are raising record amounts of money for their campaigns. Democrats are out-raising Republicans, but on both sides, the numbers are huge. According to Reuters:
Senate candidates — who have six years to raise funds due to their longer terms — have raised more than $950 million, surpassing the $844 million raised during the same period ahead of the 2010 election.
On October 9, President Donald Trump announced that he was lifting the EPA’s ban on summertime sales of E15—a motor fuel blend consisting of 15% ethanol instead of the usual 10%. Trump’s announcement is telling. It teaches much about politics, trade policy, and the sorry state of the environmentalist movement.
