Tag: Free markets
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Defending the American Dream, or RightOnline in Austin 2008
I just returned from Austin, Texas, attending a conference put on by Americans For Prosperity partnering with Sam Adams Alliance, Heritage Foundation, Leadership Institute, and Media Research Center. Thank you to my friend Erik Telford for inviting me to this conference. We had some great speakers. Robert Novak is a favorite person of mine. I…
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Defending the American Dream Summit, Austin, Texas
Later this week I’ll be traveling to Austin, Texas to attend Americans For Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit, also known as RightOnline Summit. There will be many excellent speakers, including a favorite person of mine, Robert Novak, whose recent autobiography The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington I highly recommend. Naturally, I’ll…
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Drug Runaround: Solved by Universal Health Care?
A letter writer in the July 12, 2008 Wichita Eagle has issues with his health insurance coverage, and wants us to discard our present system in favor of universal health care coverage. Mr. Ronald Voth of Halstead (a candidate for the Democratic party nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives for the fourth district of…
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Where’s Leadership on Oil Speculation?
In the July 12, 2008 Wichita Eagle, Kenneth James Crist of Wichita blames oil speculators for ruining the U.S. Economy, writing that politicians should “do something positive to halt the rampant speculation in the stock market and oil futures that is really driving these runaway prices. All it really amounts to is tremendous greed on…
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Wichita Old Town Warren Theater Public Hearing Remarks
From John Todd. Testimony I presented before the Wichita City Council on July 1, 2008 in opposition to the proposed Old Town Warren Theater LLC loan. The question before the council today relates to the proper role of government. I believe the role of government is that of acting as a non-partial judge from the…
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Price Controls Will Harm Iowa
In the article Price Controls Create Man-Made Disasters we learn that although the Iowa attorney general has imposed Iowa’s anti-price-gouging rule (Price-gougers beware, Attorney General says), the likely effect will be “shortages of needed supplies, long lines, delayed repairs, and, perhaps, increased incivility.” The price system is very good at allocating scarce resources. That’s certainly…
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A Believer in Good Government Programs
A Mr. Greg Abbott of Clearwater, Kansas makes the case in the June 13, 2008 Wichita Eagle that there are many good government programs: the interstate highway system, the post office, the air traffic control system, police and fire departments, etc. I believe the writer makes a huge error in logic by assuming that because…
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The smoking ban in Wichita
University of Kansas School of Medicine professor Dr. Rick Kellerman is on the front page of the May 30 Wichita Eagle. Kellerman is upset that a complete ban on smoking is not expected to be adopted by the city council at their June 3 meeting.
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Sedgwick County trash franchising: on the road to economic perdition
I received this letter to Sedgwick County (Kansas) Commissioner David Unruh “over the transom” and I thought it merited reading by the general public. The author speaks of the “road to economic perdition.” I had to use the dictionary to refresh my memory of the exact meaning of the word “perdition.” While that term seems…
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Trash Franchising in Wichita and Sedgwick County
But what trash franchising does is to grant a monopoly to one (or sometimes a few) service providers for specific geographic areas. Under franchising, people living in an area will have either no choice, or perhaps limited choice, in choosing who picks up their trash. Rates will also be set by government. The effect of…
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Everything you love you owe to capitalism
This is an excellent article by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. An excerpt: I’m convinced that Mises was right: the most important step economists or economic institutions can take is in the direction of public education in economic logic. There is another important factor here. The state thrives on…
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Haze surrounds Wichita smoking ban
Smoking ban supporters claim that they have the right to go to bowling alleys, bars, and other such places without having to breath secondhand smoke. That’s false. No one has the right to be on someone else’s property on their own terms. The property owner controls those terms. If the bar owner lets the band…