Cronyism and Corporatism

These subsidies exemplify crony capitalism. The Austrian School of economics defines any subsidy as government intervention in the functioning of the economy.

Amtrak is always on the verge of reviving intercity rail traffic in the US, or at least that is what politicians want us to believe. The truth is that the case for defunding Amtrak has never been stronger.

The late P.T. Bauer provided much insight into the issue of the so-called First World sending aid to Third World nations in the name of “development.” Bauer demonstrated conclusively that such donations actually impede economic growth in poor nations.

Cinephiles are mourning the death of Val Kilmer, who is remembered for many movies, but we ought also to be remembered for his performance in the underrated anti-war classic, Real Genius.

In a libertarian world, the streets and highways would no longer be state-owned, but instead managed by private entities such as companies and cooperatives. How might this work?

The California Bullet Train has become the Eternal Project That Won‘t Go Away no matter how big a failure it has become. Political inertia is a powerful force and California politicians have used it to deceive voters and taxpayers, who will face a reckoning.

Excerpts from the 2025 Memorial Lectures presented at the Austrian Economics Research Conference in Auburn, Alabama.

President Trump‘s threat to withhold $9 billion from Harvard University is being framed in the legacy media and academia as a threat to Harvard‘s academic freedom. But there is a pertinent question no pundits are even asking: Why are taxpayers being forced to give Harvard $9 billion?

The goalposts are continually changing (more like fallacy-hopping), but one would-be goal of tariffs needs to be confronted—tariffs for domestic job protection.

People like to believe that national defense is outside of economic analysis, but the reality is that laws of economics are immutable and universal. A case in point is the development of the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet.