It’s something of a chicken-and-egg problem: Does big business create the regulator, or does the regulator create big business? In every industry there’s an initial period of rapid innovation featuring multiple startup firms, which gives way to consolidation into a handful of dominant firms. In a free market, this dominance period will usually be short-lived until the next round of innovation.What happens in a state-capitalist economy, however, is that both the dominant firms and its critics converge towards regulation. The critics think they’re “reigning in” big business, and the dominant firms think they’re maintaining market position by making it harder for new entrants to innovate. It’s a win-win for both sides, and the only losers are potential innovators and consumers.Over time, innovation becomes harder and harder as the state’s regulatory “standards” filter down throughout society, to the point where nobody questions were the standards came from or why they became standards in the first place. Does anyone know why the USDA decided a 135-to-1 beef-to-water ratio was optimal for beef broth? I’m guessing most people at the USDA don’t know. It’s the standard, and nobody really needs to know more then that.

I’d be a lot more sympathetic to this law, in fact, if it required the police to check the immigration status of every single person they pulled over, without any gauzy “reason to believe” fig leaf to cover up what’s really going on. Raise your hand if you think that law could have passed in Arizona. Now, anyone whose hand is raised, contact your psychiatrist immediately. You need to check the dosage on those meds.

In short, there’s something funny about California’s dust bowl. It is man-made and has been brought to California farmers courtesy of the government.

According to the Wall Street Journal, NICE currently holds that, except in unusual cases, Britain cannot afford to spend more than about $22,000 to extend a life by six months.“ The question, as the Journal puts it is: "Who would you rather have making decisions about whether a treatment is worth the price – the combination of you, your doctor and a private insurer, or a government board that cuts everyone off at $22,000?” I vote for the first option. NICE also considers the quality of the lives it is deciding whether to save. Here, it employs the “quality-adjusted life years measurement,” considering such factors as “the level of pain the person is in, their mobility and their general mood.” Old folks should remember to whistle “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” when presenting themselves to the death panel. Berwick believes that the British system is “not just a national treasure; it is a global treasure.” By selecting Berwick, Obama has confirmed that he basically agrees. Those of us who, by contrast, think the British system represents a future that does not work should do everything within our power keep America free from what Anderson aptly calls “Obama’s and Berwick’s disruptive designs.”

A lot of wineries are dumping their wine. So they won’t ruin their cachet, they are creating down market labels and selling it cheap. If you’re a wine enthusiast, deflation isn’t that bad.

Free markets overwhelmingly benefit, not businesses, but consumers. Alas, we as consumers, unlike we as producers, are so diverse and numerous that we as consumers are rationally ignorant of the too-often negative effects visited upon us as consumers by government policies – policies often supported by businesses.