The problem of congested roads is explained by the absence pricing. For some strange reason, most analysts call this a "market failure". Here is one of many examples. But the failure to impose a policy is more accurately a policy failure (or government failure). The error shows up in most discussions of road pricing I have seen.
(A notable exception is the best guide to highway planning I have read in recent years, Bob Poole's Rethinking America's Highways.)
In this week's Econtalk, Russ Roberts interviews Anat Admati on the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. Both are unhappy that while Ben Bernanke and friends now take victory laps for having "saved us" from financial ruin, these are the people who got us into the mess by accepting low capital requirements and over-leveraging. Roberts and Admati agree that nothing has been learned and over-leveraging is still accepted -- as are "too big to fail" and bail-outs as an option.
Towards the end of the podcast, Admati calls it a "market failure" Roberts chimes in and says "government failure." They leave it at that.
It is both, it is crony capitalism, about which we do not talk enough. I went back to Baumol et al's Good Capitalism Bad Capitalism and found that cronyism is missing from their survey. Randall Holcombe's "Crony Capitalism By-Product of Big Government", as the title suggests, hits the nail on the head.
What to do? How do we get to smaller government? To a less over-reaching government? Both U.S. political parties are big-government parties. Our third party, Trumpism, has rolled back some regulations but has embraced mercantilism in a big way. Holcombe alludes to the various economic freedom indices as a way to identify the problem. But a better index is needed.
We keep an eye on separation of church and state. An equal devotion is needed to the separation of business and state. No government agency can keep an eye on this. The documentation job awaits some of the bright folks at the various libertarian-leaning think tanks -- of which we now have a few.
(A notable exception is the best guide to highway planning I have read in recent years, Bob Poole's Rethinking America's Highways.)
In this week's Econtalk, Russ Roberts interviews Anat Admati on the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. Both are unhappy that while Ben Bernanke and friends now take victory laps for having "saved us" from financial ruin, these are the people who got us into the mess by accepting low capital requirements and over-leveraging. Roberts and Admati agree that nothing has been learned and over-leveraging is still accepted -- as are "too big to fail" and bail-outs as an option.
Towards the end of the podcast, Admati calls it a "market failure" Roberts chimes in and says "government failure." They leave it at that.
It is both, it is crony capitalism, about which we do not talk enough. I went back to Baumol et al's Good Capitalism Bad Capitalism and found that cronyism is missing from their survey. Randall Holcombe's "Crony Capitalism By-Product of Big Government", as the title suggests, hits the nail on the head.
What to do? How do we get to smaller government? To a less over-reaching government? Both U.S. political parties are big-government parties. Our third party, Trumpism, has rolled back some regulations but has embraced mercantilism in a big way. Holcombe alludes to the various economic freedom indices as a way to identify the problem. But a better index is needed.
We keep an eye on separation of church and state. An equal devotion is needed to the separation of business and state. No government agency can keep an eye on this. The documentation job awaits some of the bright folks at the various libertarian-leaning think tanks -- of which we now have a few.
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