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Month: October 2020

Monopoly – A Bad Choice

Monopoly – A Bad Choice

There are thousands of articles and books written about monopolies – almost all of them about private monopolies. Here I am going to consider state-owned monopolies as well as privately owned ones. As a matter of definition, when I say “state-owned”, I am referring to government ownership at any level (local through national government) and any legal structure. Similarly, when I say “private”, this is usually a corporation, but it includes all other legal structures as well. Natural Monopolies Many…

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USA and COVID-19

USA and COVID-19

I understand that there is an election and that this pandemic has become, in some senses, more political than medical. That being said, we could be a little more realistic. Most of the evidence says that the USA has done neither remarkably badly nor remarkably well in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. If we must compare ourselves with other countries, we should compare ourselves with non-autocratic countries with a reasonably well-developed economy (I eliminated countries with less than $10,000…

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Living in a Socialist Country

Living in a Socialist Country

I and my family have had the unusual opportunity to live for a long period (nearly 36 years, we are not just tourists) in a socialist country. By this, I do not mean one of the socialist totalitarian countries (such as Cuba), but rather a democratic country with a more mixed economy. It is of a type which I think that most of our liberals have in mind when they endorse socialism (our radical left is a different thing). We…

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