Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Competition on Mar 11th, 2010
What ever happened to the Chevy Volt? Remember all the fanfare a year or so ago about it? A car that was entirely electric, and GM was rolling the dice and hoping that it could sell it for something like $40,000? It was a pleasant surprise to be watching the Olympics last week and see […]
Posted in Competition on Mar 5th, 2010
A favorite canard of the anti-capitalists, statists, marxists, liberals, and looting classes is that unfettered competition will lead to the creation of enormous monopolies, who kill off any competition, gouge their customers, reduce the quality of their products, and exploit their workers (since if they are a monopolist, workers will have no other choice of […]
Posted in Competition on Dec 10th, 2009
I just received a 30 page packet this morning to prepare for my grading of my courses. The gist of the 30 pages … please use our online grading resources. Every professor got the same packet.
Posted in Competition, Education on Dec 7th, 2009
What did the President say about being open to serious ideas grounded in serious research? Oh, that is reserved only for climate socialism. This paper estimates the impact of charter school attendance on student achievement using data from Boston, where charter schools enroll a growing share of students. We also evaluate an alternative to the […]
Posted in Competition, Health Care on Nov 19th, 2009
Some in the current health insurance debate argue that you simply cannot introduce market forces into the health system and still hope the needy are served. Here is a little bit of evidence, so does increased competition across hospitals reduce charity care? Despite the pervasive belief that competition impedes a hospital’s ability to offer services […]
Posted in Competition, Regulation on Nov 12th, 2009
Form a blue ribbon commission to increase regulations and recommend other solutions to “fix” that struggling industry. I have an exam and a quiz to write right now, but this article is a goldmine of economic stupidity. Par for the course these days. Two lowlights: Airlines are offering the fewest seats to passengers, measured by […]
Posted in Competition, Health Care on Nov 11th, 2009
I wonder what the AMA and my doctor friends think of this? From the Bangor Daily News: Coming soon to a Wal-Mart near you: walk-in health care. In Bangor, Monday marked the first day of business at The Clinic at Wal-Mart in the recently opened Stillwater Avenue Supercenter. Additional clinics will open in coming months […]
Posted in Competition, Environment on Sep 19th, 2009
Compared to 1900, each unit of energy input in the year 2000 provides four times as much useful heat, move a person 550 times farther, provide 50 times more illumination, and produce 12 times as much electricity. And what was the super-duper double secret government program that led to this astounding increase? Let’s just say […]
Posted in Competition on Sep 18th, 2009
Yesterday, I talked about how it is hard to reconcile two common beliefs of people: that increased competition is a bad thing, but also that too little competition is also a bad thing. It is not the case that all people dislike competition. Most obvious, we as customers should love competition in the markets where […]
Posted in Competition, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Sep 17th, 2009
Americans, indeed many folks around the world, have an inherent protectionist bent. Their sentiment goes something like this: “we shouldn’t allow American companies to outsource some of their production overseas, because it costs American jobs” “we shouldn’t allow French wineries to sell their wines over here, because that hurts the New York State wine industry” […]