by Dan Mitchell | Jul 11, 2023 | Blogs, Crime, Society
I disapprove of marijuana, cocaine, and other drugs. But I have libertarian views on legalization because people should have the right to do potentially stupid things to their own bodies. And I hold to that view even though I fear...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 28, 2023 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Regulations
As Frederic Bastiat sagely observed nearly 200 years ago, a good economist considers the indirect or secondary effects of any action. For instance, a politician might claim we can double tax revenue by doubling tax rates, but a sensible...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 19, 2023 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Regulations
Economists are not anti-regulation, but they are skeptical of rules and mandates that don’t pass a cost-benefit test. Politicians, meanwhile, generally don’t care about regulation. They are not impervious to evidence and analysis, but they mostly want...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 17, 2022 | Big Government, Blogs, Regulations
There are many reasons to have disdain for the Food and Drug Administration (pandemic failures, baby formula shortage, delayed drug approval, human cruelty, etc) and this video gives you another. If you don’t want have time to watch the video, all you really need to...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 30, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs, Regulations
Competent and honest people in the world of public policy understand that decisions have costs and benefits. Simply stated, there is no such thing as a free lunch, though politicians like to pretend otherwise (to cite an especially absurd example, the Biden...