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Richard Rahn remembers the remarkable Walter Williams [2].
Also remembering Walter Williams is Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady, who does so in her appearance in this short video [3]. And here’s the remembrance of Walter from the Hoover Institution [4].
Alberto Mingardi is rightly unimpressed with Pope Francis’s economic understanding [5].
Only two years ago, on being named to the job, Ms. Friedman literally pounded a table [7] to insist her overriding goal would be to reduce the bureaucratic disincentives that make a public listing so unattractive to young companies. One wonders which prospect of an open Senate seat changed her priorities. (Leaping to mind is 77-year-old Ben Cardin’s in Maryland, where Ms. Friedman lives and her family has long been socially prominent.)
Because your cynicism is not yet complete, did I mention that she wants the Securities and Exchange Commission not only to approve her rule but apply it to other exchanges and even private companies so Nasdaq won’t be uniquely inconvenienced by its boss’s foray into identity-politics brand-building?
And one week ago, the Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board understandably opened their criticism of Nasdaq thusly [8]: “The more we think about the new racial, gender and LGBTQ mandates [9] for corporate directors that Nasdaq announced on Tuesday, the more absurd they seem.”
GMU Econ alum Alex Salter weighs in – also in the Wall Street Journal – on the dangers of so-called “stakeholder capitalism.” [10] A slice:
Stakeholder capitalism is used as a way to obfuscate what counts as success in business. By focusing less on profits and more on vague social values, “enlightened” executives will find it easier to avoid accountability even as they squander business resources. While trying to make business about “social justice” is always concerning, the contemporary conjunction of stakeholder theory and woke capitalism makes for an especially dangerous and accountability-thwarting combination.
Better to avoid it. Since profits result from increasing revenue and cutting costs, businesses that put profits first have to work hard to give customers more while using less. In short, profits are an elegant and parsimonious way of promoting efficiency within a business as well as society at large.
Stakeholder capitalism ruptures this process.
Politicians have proved the truth of Orwell’s astute observation, “No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.” They are currently hand-picking which industries will die and which will survive. Technology and media are doing well — Zoom is now valued the same as Boeing. The same entities selling lockdown are benefitting from it.