What Happened to the GOP's Free-Market Principles? | David Boaz | Cato Institute: Commentary

What Happened to the GOP's Free-Market Principles? | David Boaz | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'In a growing economy, companies succeed and fail every day. Technology changes. Consumer tastes change. New competitors offer a better product or a better price. Raw materials or labor becomes too expensive. Some companies just aren’t viable, and some investments turn out to have been mistaken.

That’s what the “creative destruction” of a market economy is all about. Companies constantly seek to serve consumers better. And often one company’s success means that other companies fail. Manufacturers of obsolete products often go out of business. Jobs and investments are lost, but what’s the alternative? Should we be keeping the firms that once made horse-drawn buggies, gramophones, and slide rules in business? No, we understand that the process of economic change makes us all better off, even though there can be short-term pain for the owners and employees of failed firms.

Republicans are supposed to know all this. That’s why they proclaim their devotion to free markets and oppose industrial policy, government subsidies, bailouts, and other schemes to override the market process and keep current firms in business even when they’re no longer meeting consumers’ needs.'

'We’d never get new companies like Staples, Domino’s, Bright Horizons, and Sports Authority — companies that Romney helped fund and nurture at Bain Capital — if investment capital was locked into existing companies.

And sometimes, as the movie “Other People’s Money” demonstrated, it takes a “predatory corporate raider” to go in and shake up a company, moving the land, labor, and capital to places where they can be more productive.'

Drug Mayhem Moves South | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary

Drug Mayhem Moves South | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary: 'The primary reason the cartels are so powerful both in Mexico and Central America has to do with the fundamental principles of economics. There is a huge demand for drugs, especially in the United States but also in Europe and, increasingly, in other portions of the world. When such a robust demand for a product exists, it is an economic certainty that profit-seeking entities will try to fulfill that demand. Prohibiting commerce of a product does not negate that dynamic; it merely perverts it. Instead of legitimate businesses engaging in lawful competition, the trade falls into the hands of elements that don’t mind breaking the law and assuming all the other risks entailed in operating in a black market. Often, that means the most ruthless, violent individuals and organizations come to dominate the trade.'

State almost caught up on concealed carry permits - 1330 WHBL Sheboygan's News Radio

State almost caught up on concealed carry permits - 1330 WHBL Sheboygan's News Radio: About 71,000 people have applied for permits since the concealed carry law took effect November first.

That is about 1.6% of the adult population! That already puts us 1/3 the way up the list by license rate (of an old list).

Is Further Intervention a Cure for Prior Intervention? - Percy L. Greaves, Jr. - Mises Daily

Is Further Intervention a Cure for Prior Intervention? - Percy L. Greaves, Jr. - Mises Daily: 'In the United States, an example of this trend is clearly seen in the demand arising from some employers and their associations for the individual states to enact so-called right-to-work laws. The proposed laws would outlaw all employment contracts which specify that all employees must pay dues to the union chosen by the majority of an employer's employees in a government supervised election. Such contracts, even though they represent the free and voluntary wishes of the employers and the employees concerned, would be declared to be against public policy and therefore illegal. A growing number of employers believe that such laws will bring about a better balance of the scales in the "class warfare" supposedly going on between "labor" and management. This would seem to indicate that many present-day employers have neither faith in freedom nor an understanding of the economic principles which reveal that a free market is the most efficient means that free, peaceful, and intelligent men can use for the advancement of individual men as well as the general welfare.'