Recall how Timothy Wu, Jonathan Kanter, Lina Khan and others on the left sought to revive long discredited theories of antitrust that view nearly all mergers as anti-competitive. Mr. Kanter tested that view on the airline industry, with disastrous results.
In 2021 the Biden Justice Department challenged a JetBlue Airways alliance in the Northeast with American Airlines. In 2022 JetBlue offered Spirit a $3.8 billion merger lifeline so the combined companies could offer more competition for the four U.S. airline giants. Mr. Kanter’s Antitrust Division sued to block the merger in 2023 and prevailed in court in January 2024 in one of the most bizarre opinions we’ve ever read.
Federal Judge William Young admitted Spirit’s financial troubles. He also agreed that “an expansion of all aspects of JetBlue’s business—including network, fleet and loyalty program—would allow for more vigorous competition with the Big Four, which carry most passengers in the country.”
He still ruled the merger an antitrust violation because it would eliminate one low-fare option on some routes. JetBlue ended its merger bid soon thereafter, and Spirit declared bankruptcy in November 2024, long before the Iran war fuel spike. Now it’s shutting down for good. As these columns warned after the judge’s ruling, “Justice has essentially set Spirit up for failure.”
Well, congratulations Judge Young. With Spirit’s demise, that low-fare option is gone. The big boys are likely to snap up Spirit’s planes, airport gates and other assets, and there will be less competition than if the merger had been allowed. JetBlue is also struggling these days. Judge Young owes those Spirit employees and the traveling public an apology, and so does Mr. Kanter.
Construction is already heavily dependent on immigrant labor, and the sector faces a serious worker shortage, exacerbated by the impact of the Trump administration’s tough immigration agenda. One possible solution would involve increasing the number of temporary worker visas that allow foreign workers to fill short-term labor needs. This would ease the labor shortage and relieve upward wage pressure. Streamlining occupational licensing across state lines would let workers follow demand rather than being trapped in a state by patchwork credentialing rules. And repealing prevailing wage laws, which mandate union-scale compensation on any project touching public funds, would directly bring down the cost of building the units most intended to help low-income renters.
Not surprisingly, there is a large overlap between the two groups’ views and priorities. A high proportion of what I saw and heard at LibertyCon Europe differed little from what I would expect to see at a comparable US event. For example, libertarians on both sides of the Atlantic are deeply concerned about excessive government spending and regulation, growing efforts to impose restrictions on access to various websites (often under the pretext of protecting children), protectionist restrictions on international trade, and more. American libertarians have greatly influenced their European counterparts, and vice versa. As the great Austrian libertarian economist F.A. Hayek put it, “[t]he growth of ideas is an international process.”
There are, however, several noteworthy differences. First and foremost, it is notable that European libertarians have an almost unanimously negative view of Donald Trump and his administration. Many, probably most, American libertarians are similarly negative. But there is a significant faction that is “anti-anti Trump” (holding that Trump is flawed, but still preferable to his opponents, or at least no worse than them), and a smaller but vocal group that is actively pro-Trump.
Laura Williams explains why beef prices in the U.S. are likely to remain high. A slice:
Capital equipment required to keep cattle ranches running is increasingly expensive, partly due to the high cost of importing steel and other metals. Tariffs of 50 percent apply to materials coming in from China and Canada, some of our most prolific trading partners.
Steven Spielberg, for example, denies the billionaire tax had anything to do with his entirely coincidental relocation to New York City at the start of the year, but the timing sure was convenient, since the initiative specifies that the billionaire tax will be retroactively assessed on anyone residing in California as of Jan. 1.
Memo to California voters: If it is possible for a citizen of your state to lower their tax bill by moving to Manhattan, something has gone seriously wrong.
Ironically, timing the tax to the start of the year was supposed to make it harder for billionaires to avoid paying. Instead, this too-clever-by-half design forced them to jump the gun, even though doing it this way was almost certainly illegal and retroactive taxation would be challenged in court.
In 1826, a ream of 500 sheets of paper cost about $5. With average wages near five cents an hour, the time price was 100 hours.
Paper was precious.
Today, 500 higher-quality sheets sell for $7.99 at Staples. With average wages around $36.86 an hour, the time price is just 13 minutes.
