When Antitrust and Patents Collide (Rambus v. FTC)
As I noted in The Schizo Feds: Patent Monopolies and the FTC, the state grants patent monopolies and then uses antitrust law to attack the beneficiaries of those monopolies.
The Japanese tighten their belts
I didn’t realize that Japan had enacted a law that will certainly improve it’s economic malaise:
Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must measure the waistlines of Japanese people ages 40 to 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the population.
The Government Wrecks the Economy
At this point it is just a waiting game for the National Bureau of Economic Research to declare that we have been in recession. Of course they work from past data; we all do. But the data will show what has been true for months. Investment is falling. Unemployment is rising. The trends are consistent with every single recession on record. Have a look for yourself.
Seasteading
A friend recently pointed me to this interesting article on The Seasteading Institute. The article is skeptical without being at all dismissive. I’d even call it encouraging.
I’d heard the term “seasteading” but hadn’t yet looked into it.
The Significance of Mises.org
The Mises Institute contributes to the betterment of society and the advancement of knowledge in two ways. First, it offers a wealth of scholarly resources. Second, it offers cogent, insightful commentary through its Daily Articles and the Mises Economics Blog. Let’s examine these in greater detail.
Dirt and Politics
In the escalating negativity in American politics, each side of every battle constantly unearths arcane new details that attack the other sides, which partisans quickly incorporate into dueling character assassinations. As a result, we are inundated with stories about ministers with controversial statements, supposed examples of corruption, potentially tainted campaign staff or advisers and the like. At the same time, voters are dangerously uninformed about important political policies and their consequences.
Cooperation: How a Free Market Benefits Everyone
The following attempts to explain the most important idea in the history of social analysis. The notion (a description of reality that is all around us but rarely noticed) has been around for centuries. It was first observed by ancients. It was described with rigor by late-medieval monks. It was given scientific precision in the classical period. It is the basis of advances in social theory in the 20th century.
Aristotle on Mixed Economies
Moderation is only good if it is moderating between two bad extremes and to a good mean, and not if it is moderating between a good and a bad. Advocating a “mixed economy” or a middle ground between socialism and capitalism is nothing more than advocating a middle ground between threatening your neighbor with violence if he doesn’t do your will and not threatening him with violence. If he resists, it becomes the same as the “middle ground” between murdering and not murdering. In that sense, capitalism is an extreme, just as courage is an extreme against noncourage.
TIME for Socialism
What Time’s “fix” involves is essentially the Sweden-ization of America, where the average working family would be handing over 65 -70 percent of its earnings to government bureaucrats, with regulation-induced price increases eating up perhaps another ten percentage points. This all needs to be done at the very beginning of the next administration, moreover, for “putting off change won’t be an option much longer.” It is a perfect recipe for impoverishing America.
The Oil Follies
Anyone familiar with modern politics knows that Republicans and Democrats regularly vie with each other to see who can be more economically illiterate. But it seems that with some newly proposed legislation, Democrats are determined to take the lead and cripple the US oil industry permanently.
