When Hawaii recently passed a law controlling how high the price of gasoline can go in that state, it was the first law controlling the price of gasoline since 1981, when President Ronald Reagan ended federal control over oil prices. What was unusual about the...
Even the Department of Energy's study found that price caps -- which, let's not forget, are what got California into this mess in the first place -- won't improve the energy situation. In fact, they'll likely make it worse. The study concluded that a $150 "hard cap"...
It was only a passing news item when the financial information service Standard & Poor's lowered the rating it gave to bonds issued by the state of California. But it has big implications and it also shows the big difference between economics and politics. At the...
The last time so many people were as bedeviled as the people of California are today by electrical blackouts was back in 1979, when motorists in cities across the country were lined up for hours at filling stations, waiting to get gas. Both shortages had the same...
As an economist, whenever I hear the word "shortage" I wait for the other shoe to drop. That other shoe is usually "price control." So it was no great surprise to discover, after the electric power shortage in California made headlines, that there were price controls...
Warning: Over certain issues, otherwise intelligent people may, repeat, may suffer instantaneous, and often irreversible, brain-freeze. Take the minimum wage. The City Council in Santa Monica, Calif., a town also known as "Moscow on the Pacific," just voted...
Every so often, without fail, the Republicans remind me why I don't join the party. A recovering drug and alcohol abuser, living in the streets, recently told me the following story. One day, in desperate need of money, he went to the owner of a convenience store. The...
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