Bradley Thomas | The Libertarian Institute

Why ‘Price Gouging’ Actually Helps During a Crisis

by Bradley Thomas | Mar 10, 2020 | Featured Articles

As the coronavirus panic heightens, the price of items like hand sanitizer and medical face masks – to the extent they are still available - are skyrocketing. CBS News reported last week that “Online, sales of virus protection products have skyrocketed, up 817% in the last two months. Two large bottles of Purell hand sanitizer were on sale for $299 on Amazon. That size normally sells for about $9 a bottle. Another listing, for four boxes of masks, is usually about $20 — it was being sold for more than $1,000.” In response, some state governments have already vowed to punish “price gouging.”...

The “F” Word

by Bradley Thomas | Mar 2, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles, Politics

There’s a four letter word beginning with ‘f’ that’s on a lot of people’s lips these days. I’m talking about “free.” Free just might be the most powerful word in the English language. It drastically alters people’s behaviors and can short-circuit mental reasoning like few other words can. I can vividly remember many years ago when I worked events for a major league baseball franchise. The team would occasionally have “giveaway” nights in which the first 1,000 or 5,000 fans would receive a free souvenir gift. Mind you, these gifts were typically low-quality, cheap trinkets that most folks...

No, Taxing Corporations Is Not How You ‘Stand Up’ For Workers

by Bradley Thomas | Feb 27, 2020 | Featured Articles

No, taxing corporations is not how you ‘stand up’ for workers It’s hypocritical to claim to support workers but also want to heavily tax corporations. Leading Democratic presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will constantly tell us they are for protecting and standing up for workers, while at the same time insist that the government levy heavy taxes on corporations. But basic economic analysis tells us that taxing corporations is not a way to stand up for workers, but rather punish them. Why? Because “corporations” don’t pay taxes, people do. But if...

Short-sighted state governments rack up $1 Trillion in liabilities

by Bradley Thomas | Feb 18, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Politics

As if the national debt and federal entitlement liabilities weren’t enough. Now we get word that state governments have racked up more than a trillion dollars in unfunded healthcare benefits for state government workers. That’s trillion – with a ‘T’. In a report released earlier this month, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) revealed the total, adding “That’s an average of $3,107 of unfunded OPEB liabilities for every resident of the United States.” The financial liabilities, labeled “Other post-employment benefits,” or OPEB for short, calculate the present value of health...

Is Anarcho-Capitalism A Contradiction?

by Bradley Thomas | Feb 3, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Politics

Is it possible for a stateless society to adequately protect property rights? Any Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist has no doubt been confronted with the assertion that a state is necessary to enforce the property rights so vital to a market-based, capitalist system. Is this true? Defining the State Before proceeding any further, its imperative to establish what we mean when describing “the state.” In a brilliant 1974 lecture entitled “Society Without a State,” presented online here, Murray Rothbard laid out a concise definition: “Let me say from the beginning that I define the state as that...

What Robert Reich is hiding from millennials

by Bradley Thomas | Jan 28, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich’s latest video presentation attempts to explain to millennials why they are so broke. Disappointingly, millennials will be left wanting, as Reich never delves deeper than surface-level observations and conceals some inconvenient facts that may lead viewers to a very different conclusion than Reich would like them to reach. Produced by his organization called “Inequality Media” and published at Salon.com, Reich’s latest commentary is entitled “Four reasons why millennials don’t have any money.” Declaring that millennials are “working hard, starting families...

Two replies to shut down the “healthcare and housing are human rights” argument

by Bradley Thomas | Jan 20, 2020 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

There is no shortage of politicians and other armchair philosophers insisting that things like healthcare and housing are “human rights.” Anyone watching the Democratic presidential debates, or having spent five minutes on social media, has no doubt heard this refrain countless times. The claim, of course, is a veiled way to promote greater government involvement in the provision of such goods. Opponents can then be tarred with wanting to deny people of their basic human rights if they dare speak a word in opposition to plans like Medicare for All or expanded housing subsidies. The claim has...

How Government is Preventing a North Carolina Doctor from Providing Low-Cost Care to Patients

by Bradley Thomas | Dec 17, 2019 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism

A North Carolina doctor suing the state to overturn a law preventing him from providing affordable MRI scans to patients recently won a small victory in court. In late November, a Wake County Superior Court judge ruled that Dr. Gajendra Singh’s challenge of North Carolina’s Certificate of Need (CON) laws could proceed. One of countless regulations imposed on America’s healthcare industry, CON laws serve as yet another reminder of just how far our nation is from having anything remotely resembling a “free market” in healthcare. In short, CON laws require medical care facilities and...