There is no such thing as price gouging. During crises, we see price signals that help allocate scarce resources to those who need them most.
But some Michigan lawmakers are proposing new laws to prevent "price gouging" during emergencies, an approach that misinterprets how markets work. Suppressing these signals, as the proposed laws intend, will result in shortages and ultimately harm consumers.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News September 4, 2024.
Sixty percent of Michigan’s third-graders just failed the state’s reading test. Last week the state Department of Education released the results of the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress (M-STEP). The results showed that only 39.6% of third-graders were rated proficient or above in the English Language Arts portion — a 10-year low. What’s more shocking is the collective shrug from political leaders and school officials.
People should notice that the candidates running to represent them are not promising to do much. More than in the past, this election doesn’t seem to be about policy. Yet candidates are taking tough stances. Interest groups have gotten candidates to state their views on the issues that interest groups care about. And voters will never be told how much their candidates have deferred their judgment to special interests.
Michigan’s long-delayed distribution of federal funds for promoting internet access is likely to be delayed again. Congress in its 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act economic stimulus legislation authorized more than $42 billion in federal funding for increasing internet access, of which $1.5 billion was allocated to Michigan. So far, not a single Michigan household or business has been connected to the internet as a result of the program.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News August 30, 2024.
Adrian Montague and James Shuttleworth believe that $5 can change the world.
And if you’re going to change the world, why not start with an overlooked and much-maligned city like Flint?
Governments at the local, state and federal levels run a vast number of anti-poverty programs, but poverty rates remain high. The two political parties rarely consider solutions that do not involve spending more public money. Our leaders would be better off eliminating barriers to work rather than fussing over finances, according to Josh Bandoch, head of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute.
The European Union’s process-based regulations on genetically modified organisms might seem to stem from a reasonable concern for public safety. Special interests and regulators have pointed to the supposedly unnatural process of genetic modification since GMOs began to see widespread use in the early 1990s. They warn about the potential or unknown risks of genetically modified foods and claim these organisms damage the natural environment. Activists also predict economic harm as farms consolidate and small farmers get squeezed out.
There’s an adage that whatever you tax more, you get less of. Michigan is learning this lesson the hard way as strong income earners flee the state.
The financial information website SmartAsset last week published the results of its 2024 study, “Where High-Earning Households Are Moving.” Spoiler alert: they’re not moving to Michigan.
America’s adversarial political process is supposed to produce good results. The candidates offer different opinions, visions and proposals. The person with the most compelling ideas wins office and gets to enact his or her agenda.
Yet this is not how the political debate is working. Instead, candidates take advantage of a quirk in the adversarial process. Politicians don’t need to have the best ideas and most persuasive points. Candidates can also win if voters think it is unfathomable to vote for the person on the other side.
Workers deserve the right to choose who best represents them in the workplace. This Labor Day, public sector workers are on the verge of being able to make that choice for the first time in decades.
For years, unions have denied dissenting workers the right to completely dissociate from union representation. Workers who would prefer to have nothing to do with the union are still forced to accept the contract it negotiates with their employer. This problem results from a principle of labor law known as exclusive representation.
Academic economists have useful ideas about how to make the world better off. The papers they write are important but aren’t going to make the best seller list. Nor are they targeted at persuading enough people to generate the political popularity necessary for legislative change. This is where the economist Bryan Caplan steps in. His latest book, Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation, provides a more accessible take on the subject and puts it into a graphic novel. I discuss this work with him on the Overton Window podcast.
A reader took the time to send a respectful response to the recent Wall Street Journal op-ed in which Jason Hayes and I discussed our new report on the threat to grid reliability in seven Great Lakes states.
This reader wrote:
You raise some interesting points. One clear solution is more storage. Renewable sources such as wind and solar often produce peak power at the wrong time of the day. Storage choices will expand over the next five to ten years and the cost will decline.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is calling on Michigan residents to report “misleading or inaccurate information regarding voting or elections” to her office. According to the secretary, “Voters have a responsibility to proactively seek out reliable sources of information and encourage productive and honest dialogue.”
Governments regulate many occupations. Everyone knows doctors and lawyers need a license to practice. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Many lower-profile jobs require licenses that do not provide much benefit to the public. Michigan regulates nearly 50 low-income occupations, such as shampooers, manicurists, milk samplers and door repair contractors.
Republicans tend to support school choice and Democrats tend to oppose it. That’s why there’s been a rush of red states to approve scholarships for K-12 students. Pennsylvania, on the other hand, has been a state with mixed partisan control and has a number of school choice programs. I speak about it with Elizabeth Stelle, director of policy analysis at the Commonwealth Foundation, for the Overton Window podcast.
Is the union comeback finally here? Unions have been touting their supposed resurgence for decades, though actual union membership continues to decline. The union comeback remains unlikely, because unionization sows the seeds of failure in its own communities.
By Naomi Saneda
This year’s Michigan budget contains $1 billion in pork projects that are constitutionally suspect and do not promote the general welfare in the state. Politicians earmark state tax dollars for district-specific purposes, usually very late in the budgeting process and in opaque language designed to mask the nature of the spending.
Michigan is spending money at an unsustainable rate, and the state’s latest state budget shows why this can’t go on.
The state-funds budget for fiscal year 2024-25 is $46.8 billion, a 0.4% decline from the previous year. While this amount is below the Sustainable Michigan Budget level, it hides deeper problems threatening the state’s economic future.
The American people are taking part in a massive beta test of so-called green energy technology that is extremely buggy and unreliable, while infrastructure the public knows and trusts, including old-fashioned electricity, is increasingly devalued by leaders and activists.
A new federal court decision could fundamentally transform private sector labor law. In Space Exploration Technology Corporation v NLRB et al, the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled Monday that the National Labor Relations Board, and by extension the National Labor Relations Act, were unconstitutional. While the case is not yet resolved and appeals are likely, the landscape of labor law could be forever changed should the ruling stand.
Interest groups winning protections from governments that cost the public is an old tale. They often follow the classic rule of concentrated benefits, diffuse costs. Like bed bugs, they are difficult to get rid of once established. Difficult, but not impossible. I spoke with Alisdair Whitney, legal counsel at the Institute for Justice, about the institute’s success in repealing Certificate of Need laws in a number of states.
In 2019, Stephanie Wilson drove with Malcolm Smith to a house and then left. A police officer who was staking out the property as an alleged drug house followed the car and then pulled it over. A search found five empty syringes, but no drugs or other evidence. Police did not test the syringes.
This article originally appeared in the Detroit News July 23, 2024.
The Republican Party’s current flirtation with organized labor reminds me of the fable of the scorpion and the frog.
You remember that one: The scorpion wants to cross the river but cannot swim. He asks the frog for a ride. The frog worries the scorpion might sting him while crossing the river.
By Craig Orji
President Joe Biden unveiled a plan to lower housing costs. He recommends nationwide rent control, which is a well-documented way to make the housing market worse for everyone.
Biden’s plan seeks to curb rising housing costs by imposing a 5% cap on rent increases for landlords with over 50 units, while exempting new housing from this limit.
This article originally appeared in The Detroit News July 1, 2024.
Mike Pancio joined the U.S. Army seven months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was 25.
He trained at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and was an artillery instructor at Camp Van Dorn in Mississippi. He was promoted to the rank of technical sergeant. In September 1944, he boarded a ship overseas, attached to the 393rd Infantry Regiment.
