Bureaucracy and Regulation

In a city with rapidly rising housing needs, there is really only one way to keep housing prices stable or falling: produce a lot of housing.

There is a myth that Progressive humanitarians agitated for meat-packing regulations which now protect us from disease. The reality is that the big meat packers themselves wanted regulation to help crush the competition.

Rent controls are a recipe for less housing, and unaffordable rents. At least for most people.

Government anti-trust policy often results in destroying cost-saving measures adopted by larger firms, thus driving up prices for ordinary consumers.

Occupational licensing may increase quality for some higher income customers. But licensing increases monopoly power for dominant firms while driving lower-income customers out of the marketplace.

Mises states, quite rightly, that anyone who advocates governmental dictation over one area of individual consumption must logically come to advocate complete dictation over all choices.

Shannon O'Toole's memoir on working for the FDIC helps us understand why some have taken to calling federal employment "white collar welfare."

Even if laws against slander and libel appear good in theory, in practice they are all too often used by the powerful to silence the weak. A respect for free speech demands defamation laws be kept very weak.

Recycling isn't free. It requires the use of time and resources, many of which end up wasted. But politicians keep insisting that recycling is always a win-win, even though we have many examples to the contrary.

It is highly unlikely that Woke Big Business on its own can turn the US into a totalitarian society. Historically speaking, business policies have followed the lead of governments, not the other way around. The state remains the real threat.