Norman Singleton | The Libertarian Institute

Hands Off My Social Media!

by Norman Singleton | Nov 4, 2024 | Featured Articles

Democrats have found a new superstar to help get out the progressive vote: Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan. Khan has done town halls with Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Mark Pocan (D-WI), Senate candidate and current Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Khan’s appearances are official government events—not campaign rallies. However, politicians would not appear at an event in an election year unless they where sure it would appeal to a key constituency. It may seem odd that politicians would consider it helpful to...

Lina Khan Gets It Wrong (Again)

by Norman Singleton | Oct 28, 2024 | Economics, Featured Articles

60 Minutes recently aired an interview with Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan conducted by veteran reporter Lesley Stahl. This may have been the first time in their 58-year history that 60 Minutes has profiled an FTC chair, but Lina Khan is not the “typical” FTC chair. President Joe Biden picked Lina Khan to head the FTC because she is a (maybe the) leading advocate for “neo-Brandeisians.” Named for former Supreme Court Justice (and progressive icon) Louis Brandeis, this movement seeks to restore the “big is de facto bad" approach that dominated antitrust from the passage of the...

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...

« Older Entries