In response to my article today on Mises.org, a correspondent from Poland writes:

...as reported in this excellent piece, Whose music is it anyway?, by Norman Lebrecht. Lebrecht reports some absurd outcomes of copyright law, the application of which threatens to limit the availability of treasured classic music recordings. 

“Chronic unemployment is obviously a political disease that springs from the primitive notion that government can improve everyone’s income and working conditions by legislation and regulation.”

“Whenever government forcibly raises employment costs it causes marginal labor, that is, labor that barely covers its costs, to become submarginal.

It’s nice of American Heritage, but I’d say they got it wrong. “Conduct” denotes morality/ethics, and a judgment of one’s actions, and not the value-free fact of action itself. Tsk, tsk editors.

Okay, so no one’s actually getting killed. But their lives are being made more difficult—in this case, legislation to “help” the poor by tightly regulating payday loan places will sharply restrict their access to short-term credit. Are there con men out there? Sure. Do people get ripped off? No doubt.

Inflation: Why you’re not getting a raise this year:

A Bloomberg report describes the folly that is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

SOX has caused companies to divert resources from consumer-serving operations into the installation of new computers and the hiring of additional accounting workers.

SOX forced Yellow Roadway Corporation to hire 10 additional employees and 20 consultants to help write new accounting software. The extra $10 million it spent could have purchased 130 heavy duty truck cabs.

While this may seem like a no-brainer to many, some individuals (i.e. regulators and various economists) suggest that because perfect information does not exist for all market participants, the market must be regulated. The reality of the situation seems to contradict this paternalistic urge and several entrepreneurs have specialized (exploited, if you will) in collecting our favorite specialty pricing schticks: coupons, rebates and cash-back (oh my).