Norman Singleton | The Libertarian Institute

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...

Et Tu, Heritage?

by Norman Singleton | Mar 21, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

Heritage Foundation’s Research Technology Fellow Kara Fredrick’s recent paper, “Combating Big Tech Totalitarianism A Road Map,” is an about face from where the think tank stood just two years ago—and a major departure from where the Hertiage Foundation has stood for decades regarding intervention into markets. This ideological turn places the Heritage Foundation with Trump era conservatives whose populist anger at private technology companies has lead them to support using antitrust and other government regulation to crack down on “Big Tech.” Consequently, Fredrick urges the federal...

Jimmy Carter, the Great Deregulator

by Norman Singleton | Feb 11, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

One way President Biden can “Build Back Better” is following the example of one of the greatest deregulators to sit in the Oval Office: Jimmy Carter. Whilst most think of Carter as a standard New Deal-Great Society liberal, deregulation was a major part of Carter’s economic agenda and one of the greatest aspects of his legacy. It’s something that Carter and Reagan had in common, not something that set them apart. Carter—and other leading progressives at the time such as Ralph Nader—understood the Golden Rule: whoever has the gold makes the rules. Regulation frequently, if not always,...