Norman Singleton | The Libertarian Institute

Will Congress’ Chinese Derangement Syndrome Ground Drones?

by Norman Singleton | Jun 27, 2024 | Featured Articles

Those who hoped that our leaders have recovered from China Derangement Syndrome (CDS) may soon be disappointed. This is because Congress is considering including legislation targeting Chinese drone manufacturer DJI to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). DJI is the world’s largest drone manufacturer and is estimated to control between 65% and 90% of the world’s drone market. DJI’s drones are user-friendly and can safely be operated even by novice drone users. One reason for DJI’s popularity is it protects their users’ privacy. DJI does not store user data within its system...

Conserving the New Deal?

by Norman Singleton | May 8, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles

Jeffery Tyler Syck, assistant professor of political science at the University of Pikeville, is the latest conservative to urge the right to abandon—or at least modify—its commitment to free markets and constitutionally-limited government. In an article for The American Conservative, “Conserving the New Deal,” Syck calls on conservatives to recognize that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was not just “a conserving rather than a revolutionary project,” but was in fact the “third greatest constitutional development in the history of our nation.” Presumably the first two were the adoption of the...

New Merger Guidelines Could Make 2024 a Difficult Year for Business and Biden

by Norman Singleton | Jan 31, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles

A common way politicians and government officials bury bad or controversial news is to release it at a time when it is guaranteed to receive limited attention, such as 4:45 p.m. on a Friday or right before a holiday. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice pulled this trick when they unveiled the final version of their new merger guidelines on December 18, when those who had not yet started their Christmas vacations were focusing on the ongoing negotiations of a border security/Ukraine funding deal. The finished guidelines are largely the same as the draft issued in...

Josh Hawley Is Protecting the FTC from Accountability

by Norman Singleton | Jan 24, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles

Last March, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) board member Christine Wilson resigned following publication of an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal detailing FTC Chair Lina Khan’s mismanagement of the agency. The op-ed details possible violations of federal ethics guidelines. Wilson’s resignation left the FTC with only three board members, instead of the five necessary to be considered a full board. More troubling is that all the current commissioners are Democrats who vote in lockstep with Khan. While the presence of two Republicans on the board might not block Khan from wasting taxpayer money...

The FTC Is Suing Amazon for Being ‘Too Big to Succeed’

by Norman Singleton | Oct 17, 2023 | Featured Articles

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently filed its long-anticipated lawsuit against Amazon. The FTC alleges that Amazon is using their market power to bully smaller vendors that use its platform by requiring them to pay exorbitant fees to use Amazon’s shipping service—and agree to not sell their products on other platforms (including their own) at a cheaper price than the products are sold for on Amazon. However, the requirement that companies use Amazon’s shipping services was imposed in order to ensure that third party vendors could meet Amazon delivery standards. In fact, the company...

Big Tech, As Brought To You By the Federal Reserve

by Norman Singleton | Mar 27, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles

New York Times Technology writer David Streitfeld recently examined the role the Federal Reserve’s easy money policies played in the rise and, if not fall then at least slippage, of many technology companies. Immediately after the bursting of the housing bubble (which was also caused by the Fed) in 2008, the central bank embarked on a historic spree of money creation that kept interest rates near or even below zero. The Fed not only used its traditional tools to pump money into the economy, but pursued an unpresented policy of “quantitative easing.” The result was that investors found...

Federal Privacy Rules Will Give You Less Privacy

by Norman Singleton | Oct 17, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

History shows that putting the federal government in charge of protecting privacy is like a blood bank hiring Dracula as a nightwatchman. But that’s what the Biden administration wants to do with the Internet. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently in the process of drafting a rule governing the way technology companies handle their user’s personal data. This is the latest attempt by FTC Chair Lina Khan to increase government oversight and control of “Big Tech.” Almost all social media users have had the (what most consider) creepy experience of seeing ads for products they just did...

Congress as a Seinfeld Episode, But This Won’t Leave You Laughing

by Norman Singleton | Apr 20, 2022 | Featured Articles

Congress. Seinfeld. Both offer amusing forms of entertainment, one being about nothing and the other starring people that know nothing. The entertainment value of watching Congress is that their intentions and the effects of their actions are frequently 180 degrees from each other. Kind of like that Seinfeld episode where George Costanza decides to do the exact opposite of his instincts. For example, he insulted the owner of the New York Yankees during an interview, yet he got the job. Unfortunately, America is not a Seinfeld episode and such legislative failures can cause devastating...

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Israel Winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War

by Gary Vogler

From the Foreword by Lawrence B. Wilkerson: “[T]he debate over whether oil was a principal reason for the 2003 invasion has waxed and waned, with one camp arguing that it absolutely was, while the other argues the precise opposite.” “Mr. Vogler, himself a former...

Domestic Imperialism: Nine Reasons I Left Progressivism

by Keith Knight

Imagine the Catholic Church (or any person or group of people) doing what the government does every day: Everyone who doesn’t give the Catholic Church 25% of his annual income every year will be put in jail. If he resists the Jesuit officer, the officer has the right...

Diary of a Psychosis: How Public Health Disgraced Itself During COVID Mania

by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

FOREWORD BY JAY BHATTACHARYA, MD, PHD Diary of a Psychosis is different from all other books on Covid: it traces the development of the government response as it happened, bit by bit, and subjects it to relentless scrutiny: did any of it do any good? It thereby...