Gary Galles ponders the Democrats’ recent rhetorical embrace of ‘freedom.’
It seems clear from context that President Biden’s economists regard “local land-use policies that restrict housing density and what can be built” as a market failure.
They’re not. They’re government failure. They involve governments doing certain things that the CEA economists, apparently, and I disapprove of. But it’s government doing these things, not private actors in the free market.
Jim Geraghty is understandably disturbed by J.D. Vance and Tucker Carlson. A slice:
Vance will be joining Carlson’s tour after Carlson got himself dismissed from Fox News, after Carlson’s fawning interview with Vladimir Putin, after his on-camera speculation that the U.S. government is in alliance with a malevolent spiritual force, and after this week’s program, during which guest Darryl Cooper, whom Carlson described as “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States,” declared that Winston Churchill “was the chief villain of the Second World War.”
Really? The chief villain? You can’t think of any other figure who might have earned that title?
Vero also warns of the “permission-slip economy.” A slice:
Vice President Kamala Harris thinks U.S. Steel should not have the right to sell its business to Japan’s Nippon Steel. Previously, some Republican senators thought they too should have the ability to kill the deal between private companies. And it doesn’t stop there. During the pandemic, airlines had to get the government’s permission to hand out hand sanitizer to passengers. Energy projects are subjected to years of permitting processes. And, of course, in most places, Americans aren’t allowed to build what they want on their own property without subjecting themselves to government authorization.
Welcome to the permission-slip economy. It shouldn’t be this way.
Ryerson Dalton’s letter in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal is spot-on:
How many times must we read on your editorial page such stories as “Lina Khan Loses on Noncompetes” (Review & Outlook, Aug. 22) before she has to go?
Ms. Khan, the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, has thrown way too much water on legitimate businesses and commerce in this country. We’ll never know how many times boards of directors have turned down good ideas because they don’t want to waste money in court fighting a stupid ruling from Ms. Khan’s FTC.
