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December 2008
In a new op/ed published in Investor’s Business Daily, IPI Cobden fellow Doug Bandow discusses a prominent bank’s fall to what Bandow describes as “economic extortion.”
Bandow writes: “'Victory for the Sit-in Strikers,' exulted the AFL-CIO blog. Let's hear it for economic extortion! The Bank of America was the victim of a concerted shakedown that may soon be replicated around the country. Even President-elect Obama supported this new example of Chicago blackmail." To read the full op/ed, please visit Investor’s Business Daily online. Read More...
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In a new op/ed published in American Spectator online, IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara discusses the work of the late Robert Nozick, “Anarchy, State and Utopia,” and the superiority of free-market capitalism.
Ferrara writes:
“The most intelligent person I have ever met was the late Robert Nozick, formerly the Chairman of the Harvard Philosophy Department. When he lectured, his mind seemed to race with the energy of a champion thoroughbred. Following the wisdom of Churchill, Nozick was committed to Marxist revolution at the age of 20. But continuing his study with the intense pursuit of truth, he became a capitalist libertarian long before the age of 40. He wrote one of the greatest books of political philosophy of all time, Anarchy, State and Utopia. Read More...
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The Chicago Tribune cites IPI’s music piracy study in an editorial discussing the threat of music piracy, enforcement and more.
An excerpt:
“The Recording Industry Association of America says 7.8 million U.S. households a month steal music online. That means singers, songwriters, musicians, producers and others don't get compensated for their work. The Institute for Policy Innovation, a pro-business think tank, says illegal music sharing costs the U.S. economy $12.5 billion a year.
The music industry's preferred method of fighting this—filing large lawsuits against a tiny percentage of downloaders—has earned the RIAA plenty of bad publicity, with little deterrent effect. The RIAA seems finally to have realized that. It announced last week that it would stop filing lawsuits against individual music thieves Read More...
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara discusses terrorism and analyst Deepak Chopra in his latest op/ed featured on American Spectator entitled “Guru Malpractice.”
Ferrara writes: “Are we to believe that Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the Pakistani murderers in Mumbai would not have been able to get any guns or weapons if Reagan had not armed the Afghan rebels in the 1980s? Is a single gun from that rebel resistance still even in use today? Certainly none of those weapons were in evidence on 9/11. Those attackers, indeed, were Saudis and Egyptians, without any relation to the Afghan rebels of the 1980s. Moreover, as the Chopras personally know so well, Pakistan was born in 1947 in response to furious longstanding violence between Islamic extremists and Hindu fundamentalists in India, 40 years before Reagan was arming the Afghan rebels. Read More...
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara joins other noted economic experts in a National Review symposium discussing the “Christmas season of deflation.”
Ferrara writes:
“A central point of Milton Friedman’s work was that the Fed caused the Depression by allowing the money supply to collapse, causing sharp deflation. The Fed should maintain a stable effective supply of money, including raising the supply to offset any declining velocity. But the real solution is a stiff dose of Reaganomics, which would get the real sectors of the economy booming again, in turn unfreezing the credit markets as lenders are induced to participate in the boom, aided by a new worldwide influx of investment capital. Read More...
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IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson are featured together with a new op/ed in TCS Daily discussing the ailing U.S. economy and the subsequent response from the government in repeated industry bailouts, entitled “Casino Socialism.”
Pieler and Laurson write:
“High-risk behavior is endemic when governments override market decisions. Some good will come (on the stopped-clock theory: right twice a day), but no government can deploy its forces with the efficiency market discipline provides. That is a moral problem, too, as planned inefficiency by definition sacrifices life-enhancing wealth creation, jobs, and innovations that raise living standards. Unfortunately, governments make mistakes which scarcely get corrected in the same manner that markets punish bad decisions, poor products, or shoddy service. Read More...
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IPI director of entitlement and budget policy Peter Ferrara is featured with a new op/ed in American Spectator discussing the ailing U.S. auto industry, entitled “Big Three Weekend at Bernie’s.”
Ferrara writes:
“Washington is not bailing out the Big Three automakers. It is nationalizing them. Wake up and smell the coffee. Who do you think is going to be designing the next generation of auto products from these companies? The corporate leadership or the Congressional leadership? After being rescued by billions and billions in government handouts, will the car companies be able to deny Congressional bigwigs anything they want in the design of their cars? Fuel economy standards, hybrid technology, electric cars, cars that run on ethanol, natural gas, switch grass, Bermuda grass, fine Colombian weed. Read More...
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France has found a new way to again lead the world…in the wrong direction.
France has decided to begin layering the Internet with new taxes to replace the income lost because of a government ban on primetime television commercials. This old-world view does not reflect the coming, and largely current, state of the how the Internet is accessed. And while the reasoning of the French is interesting, the result is not much different than what’s happening across the U.S.
Mobile wireless access to broadband is rapidly growing, and is expected to continue to grow as “smart phones” become increasingly popular. (While there is no standard definition of a smart phone, essentially these are mobile devices that go well beyond a traditional phone and function as a mobile personal computer.)
Read More...
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Do You Need Some Vitamin C for that Cold? Dr. Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation says then we better not do what India’s doing.
The Times of India reports that the country is facing a growing shortage of vitamin C. The reason? The Indian government imposed price controls on the vitamin in an effort to make it more affordable.
But pharmaceutical companies making vitamin C tablets have seen the cost of the raw ingredients soar by 300 percent or more. That means it’s costing the companies more to make the tablets than they can charge for them. So they’ve quit making them.
While that vitamin C shortage may not affect the U.S., the economic policy behind it could.
Democrats in Congress think price controls will lower the cost of prescription drugs here. But the only thing price controls lower … is your chance of getting a product you need. Read More...
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During the presidential campaign Barack Obama claimed that under his tax plan 95 percent of working Americans would get a tax cut.
But given where President-elect Obama’s health care reform initiative is likely heading, it would be more accurate to say that every American will see a tax increase.
Obama was very careful to say during the campaign that he did not want to require every American to buy health insurance—known as an individual mandate—or pay a fine, as his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton wanted to do.
Rather, he claimed he would only impose a health insurance mandate on children. Of course, that’s a distinction with only a minor difference—since children don’t buy their own health insurance, their parents do.
Read More...
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In a brand new op/ed in American Spectator online, IPI's Peter Ferrara points out that shortly following the Bush Administration's failed stimulus package, President-elect Barack Obama is reportedly on the verge of assembling a stimulus package of $500-800 billion, running the deficit on his proposed budget plan up to $1 trillion.
Ferrara writes:
"This ‘stimulus’ package is not going to produce economic recovery. Economic prosperity is not based on government spending. It is produced by incentives for economically productive activity, such as saving, investment, entrepreneurship, starting or expanding businesses, job creation, and work, along with other pro-growth policies (the rule of law, property rights, freedom of contract, sound money, free trade). Those incentives are strengthened by tax rate cuts, reduced regulatory costs, and other measure Read More...
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In a brand new op/ed published in South Africa’s Business Day, International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson and IPI senior fellow George Pieler discuss that while the news is focused on the current transition period in Washington, it is important to consider President Bush's final words of advice on the financial crisis, free trade and open markets.
Pieler and Laurson write:
"Here Bush’s advice and policy stance is the only right one, and his words of warning might be the most pertinent, the most needed, of his presidency…
Free trade, lest we forget, is the foundation of that global growth we are so desperately trying to keep alive."
To read the full op/ed, please visit Business Day online. Read More...
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We’re bracing ourselves for an effort by a newly-activist federal government to start playing again at central planning for industry—particularly the technology industry.
There is an army of fresh, eager new Obama advisors flocking out of their ivory towers in academia for shiny new positions in the Obama administration, and they have all sorts of pet ideas for running the American economy that they’ve been just dying to try out. And the tech sector is one of their prime targets.
We have a suggestion: Perhaps, instead of trying to run the tech economy from Washington, you should focus on deploying technology to make government better?
Health care reform—instead of undermining the parts of the U.S. healthcare system that are working best, government should be using technology to reap huge savings and better care. Read More...
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Want Your 401(k) to Lose Even More Money? The Institute for Policy Innovation’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says it could … if Congress takes control of it.
Tough economic times can lead to some really dumb proposals.
Take, for example, Democratic Congressman George Miller, who thinks that 401(k) accounts are an “inadequate vehicle” that “has not been terribly successful.”
He’s referring, of course, to the recent stock market decline that has dramatically reduced most accounts’ values.
Miller appears to think that handing your retirement funds to the federal government, as we do our Social Security contributions, would be safer.
One economist even testified before Miller that once the government gets your money, it should invest it globally in risky assets to get high returns, while guaranteeing you 3 percent.
Read More...
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The headline of the Nov. 18 company press release reads, “Two Thousand Companies Now Offering VPI [Veterinary] Pet Insurance as a Voluntary Employee Benefit.”
About now you’re probably wondering what in the world pet health insurance has to do with tax and fiscal policy. Say with us here.
Pet health insurance has been around for a number of years. Initially, the coverage was primarily intended for larger animals, such as reimbursing the owners for horse surgery and the like.
But as more expensive veterinary options have become available, and since there are a lot of people willing to pay thousands of dollars to do, say, joint replacement on a house pet, pet insurance has expanded.
Read More...
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Author: Erin Humiston || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA