I was recently in a spot that had a long row of food trucks, offering traditional fare from around the world. There were a half-dozen trucks, and I’m told that often there are many more. Patrons were in line at each of them, people from every walk of life. A diverse selection, for a diverse…
Free Markets
Free Markets, Libertarians, Liberty, Poverty
Philosopher Matt Zwolinski on ‘Bleeding-Heart Libertarians,’ The Poor, and Social Justice
by JOHN ADAMS •
I’ve posted before on libertarian professor Matt Zwolinski’s left-of-center libertarianism (see, from the Daily Caller, Seven reasons progressives should be more libertarian). Here’s a video where he discusses so-called ‘bleeding heart’ libertarianism. Although I don’t think of myself as more of a left or more of a right-of-center libertarian, there’s nothing in Zwolinski’s emphasis on…
Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Liberty
Institute for Justice takes on the Milwaukee Taxi Cartel
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s a question, in times of struggling businesses and high unemployment, that should concern everyone: What to do about oppressive regulations and crony capitalism in Milwaukee? The IJ describes what’s at issue: Should the city of Milwaukee be allowed to outlaw competition in the taxi market, causing permits to rise in price from $85 to…
Books, Free Markets, Liberty, Planning
Luskin on Atlas Shrugged, Paul Krugman, and Crony Capitalism
by JOHN ADAMS •
Donald Luskin’s spent years criticizing Krugman, not as much for Krugman’s economic accomplishments (Krugman’s a Nobel laureate) but for his subsequent politico-economic columns in the New York Times. Krugman is Luskin’s white whale, but that obsession isn’t as interesting to me as Luskin’s observation (toward the end of the video) that Atlas Shrugged is, principally,…
Cars, Free Markets, Government Spending
Ford Slams GM, Chrysler Over Government Bailouts
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s not a real press conference, but it’s a real, unscripted message: a buyer says he bought a Ford because he didn’t want a car from a company that took a taxpayer-funded bailout. The commercial doesn’t address the merits of any given Ford, GM, or Chrysler car: it impugns the two latter automakers generally. It’s…
Free Markets
University of Chicago law students defend rights of street vendors
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s an encouraging story from Chicago about the legal defense of entrepreneurial, hard-working street vendors’ offerings of good food at low prices. The vendors’ popular fare has been under attack from incumbent businesses looking to use government to limit competition and inhibit consumer choice. Day after day, Chicagoans choose these vendors over alternative offerings: [Vendors’…
Economy, Free Markets, Laws/Regulations
The Best Way to Create Jobs: Free Markets in Capital and Labor
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s New York Mayor and businessman Michael Bloomberg talking about the best way to create jobs. He’s right that fewer immigration restrictions actually boost American employment. There’s much more to be said about all this, but a scheme of labor restrictions isn’t just socially disruptive, and an example of over-criminalization. Restrictions impoverish America; free private…
Free Markets
The Morality of Capitalism
by JOHN ADAMS •
Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Liberty
Defending Street Vendors, Food Trucks, and Consumer Choice
by JOHN ADAMS •
Here’s an update in the battle for economic freedom and consumer choice. I’ve written before about how incumbent, brick-and-mortar restaurants try to use government to shield themselves from food-truck competitors. Those restaurateurs do not — will never — deserve governmental protection. They made a free choice to open a store, instead of operating a truck,…
Free Markets, Laws/Regulations, Liberty
Raw Foods Raids: Rawesome Foods Raided…Again
by JOHN ADAMS •
Today’s a day of catching up on new developments about earlier posts. Longtime readers may recall a post from November 2010, entitled, Raw Foods Raids: The Fight for the Right to Eat the Food that You Want, about an armed raid on the Rawesome Foods co-op in California. They’ve been raided yet again. Here’s a…
Free Markets
Why is it cheaper to buy a high-calorie fast-food-chain burger meal than one that is more nutritious and with less fat, salt and calories?
by JOHN ADAMS •
The hidden secret: government meddling in the free market… Although the author of the story clearly dislikes the free market, it’s not a free market when government meddles — it’s a manipulated or regulated market. Politicians simply favor some businesses over others, subsidizing those concerns, thereby giving them an unfair advantage in the marketplace. An…
Economy, Free Markets
AP: “In free market, seeds of Africa’s food solution”
by JOHN ADAMS •
There’s an encouraging story about Africa today, from the Associated Press, about the power of free market to overcome chronic famine. Peter Waziweyi is bouncing around the lush countryside of Mozambique in his 30-year-old truck, visiting his customers’ maize fields and relishing the sight of their rich, ripening crops. In an East African country that…
Books, Free Markets
Wall Street Journal Book Review: Your Teacher Said What?!
by JOHN ADAMS •
When asked if it wasn’t hypocritical for a multimillionaire director of Hollywood films to denounce capitalism as “evil,” Michael Moore averred that the free-market economy “did nothing for me.” It was, presumably, a devotion to Sandinista economics that enabled his purchase of an expensive Upper West Side apartment and covered his daughter’s private-school tuition. While…