Businesses aren’t charities. They are money-making ventures that exist by and for profit. Everything else is a bonus.
Without young, healthy individuals buying insurance and thereby paying into the system, the government is finding itself saddled with the responsibility for supporting the healthcare of the older, sicker population.
Once liberal reforms were put in place, they created choice and opportunity for many like never before. Market forces unwittingly brought about economic and thus social progress for India’s poorest and most discriminated against.
YouTube is effectively censoring video content by barring videos that depict controversial subjects from collecting advertising revenue.
Why did the United States invade Iraq? The pretense was that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction. Another popular reason, however, was to make the country safe for democracy. The campaign – like so many foreign interventions – was “an abysmal failure,” says Professor Chris Coyne in the new Learn Liberty video below. Over […]
Where government has continually failed, markets step in to provide a solution.
Imagine that the government creates the Furniture and Desk Association, an agency which declares that only IKEA is allowed to sell chairs.
The beauty of the market is that it rewards people for creating value for others. Discover new means of creating value means trying new things, being entrepreneurial, and, yes: failing.
Protectionism is the belief that domestic producers have a higher claim to your money than you do.
The real minimum wage is zero, despite the best efforts of the economically illiterate public sector do-gooder.
Free market economists argue that individuals make the best choices for themselves because they are the most aware of their specific preferences. But what happens when people come across decisions where they need specialized knowledge? How do you influence other people’s decisions in this case? In the Learn Liberty video below, Professor Antony Davies and graduate student […]
Doing the research necessary to make good choices can be very time consuming. That’s why, as we learned in the last video, people resort to using heuristics to make better decisions. In the Learn Liberty video below, Professor Antony Davies and graduate student Erika Davies explain how people sometimes rely too heavily on heuristics, which can lead […]
How does a shoe shopper decide what type of shoe to buy? How can that customer possibly make the best decision in the face of so many choices—within a reasonable amount of time? The consumer in today’s economy has an almost limitless variety of products to choose from. This abundance of variety creates a paradox of […]
Why does economic education matter? Look no further than the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, where the Washington Post is reporting that food shortages are so bad that people are attacking food trucks when they make deliveries. It all started when Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, tried to formulate public policy while ignoring economics. […]
Each presidential election year—perhaps this year more than most—we hear from friends, family, and celebrities the familiar refrain of, “If he/she wins, I’m moving to Canada!” Actress Lena Dunham is just the most recent example of this, claiming that if Republican Donald Trump is elected she “really will” move to Canada. The prevalence of this […]
Editor’s Note: This is part 2 of an open letter from Prof. Howard Baetjer to a friend who commented on one of his Facebook posts about minimum wage laws. You can view part 1 here.Baetjer and his friend, Adam, look at the minimum wage issue from very different perspectives, so Baetjer wrote an open letter. […]
The Washington Post recently blared the headline: “Majority of Millennials Now Reject Capitalism, Poll Shows.” I suspect, perhaps unfairly, that this is a matter of some pleasure for the Post’s editorial board. But if you actually read the article, a different picture emerges. In fact, 42 percent of the millennials polled say they support capitalism. […]
Fans of increased government intervention in the economy often like to justify their position by pointing to the success of the moon landing. “If we can put a man on the moon,” the refrain goes, “we can surely rebuild our crumbling infrastructure (or provide everyone with healthcare, etc.).” There’s no question the moon landing was […]
The presidential campaign has brought up several economic issues, and international trade has been front and center of the debate. So, as I look at my Donald Trump tie that was made in China and my Donald Trump shirts that were made in Bangladesh and Indonesia, I want to clarify some basic economic concepts dealing […]
“If we look at the history of the world, a huge fraction of the improvements in standard of living has come because private businesses have created new products, have given people jobs, have generated profits that raise people out of poverty and allow them to live fruitful and productive lives with reasonable standards of living.” […]
Markets can be regulated by the figurative force of competition or by the literal force of government. Which better protects buyers and sellers? Contrary to popular belief, regulation by competition usually renders regulation by government either unnecessary or counterproductive. Regulations are usually presented to the public as a matter of guarding the public interest and […]
You hear the words “socialism” and “capitalism” thrown around a lot, but what do they really mean? And what are the pros and cons of each system? In this special On Demand program, we take an honest look at these concepts and explore the practical and philosophical issues behind them. Is socialism a fairer system […]
Capitalism is frequently misrepresented on the news, on social media, and in numerous other places. These sources portray the big, evil company as the “dark side”, which is personified by a CEO. In contrast, the “mom and pop” small business owner is heroic – that is, until they become a “big player” and start “exploiting” […]
Big crises raise big questions. And in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, economists are asking billion-dollar macroeconomic questions: What causes market fluctuations? What causes business cycles? In this series of videos, Professor Tyler Cowen vets contenders for the title of “top macroeconomic theory” – Keynesian, Austrian, and Monetarist, and Real Business Cycle […]