by Donald J. Boudreaux, American Institute for Financial Analysis, August 21, 2024.
Excerpt:
This improvement is unsurprising. Irrespective of how sensible and intelligent are President Xi and his lieutenants, they can not work miracles. If the Chinese language don’t have any comparative benefit at producing EVs on a scale as massive because the one desired by these authorities officers, diverting assets on this scale into EV manufacturing is more likely to backfire — because it’s now doing. It’s doable that if Beijing diverts but extra assets into this business that ultimately the Chinese language will come to have the mandatory comparative benefit at producing EVs. However as issues now look, this risk is a foul guess — though it’s a good guess that Beijing will in reality attempt to buoy China’s troubled EV producers with but extra subsidies and particular protections. In any case, the cash that Chinese language-government officers are spending isn’t their very own; it’s cash forcibly taken from Chinese language taxpayers and shoppers.
by Ryan Bourne, Cato at Liberty, Could 16, 2024.
Excerpt:
Fewer infants imply pay-as-you-go welfare states will face rising monetary pressure, and plenty of economists fear that fewer folks will imply fewer groundbreaking concepts that drive financial progress. In response, there’s been a pro-natalist push for presidency child bonuses, tax breaks, or subsidies for childcare or different prices to make child-rearing extra reasonably priced.
The issue is that these insurance policies usually yield tiny outcomes. Nordic welfare states nonetheless grapple with below-replacement birthrates regardless of quite a few “family-friendly” insurance policies. Childcare subsidies haven’t meaningfully shifted the dial right here. Australia’s former child bonus, value hundreds of kilos, triggered solely a short lived delivery spike and the nation’s fertility price is now again round 1.6. The primary impact of economic incentives appears to be the “re-timing” of births, the place these already planning to have youngsters accomplish that sooner to acquire the money advantages.
DRH remark: This is a matter I mentioned in my overview of Matt Yglesias’s 2020 e-book, One Billion People. Right here’s a related part of my overview:
In a e-book that advocates huge will increase in immigration, a pure subsequent step to take could be to argue for decreasing the price of baby rearing by permitting thousands and thousands of immigrants, in all probability disproportionately ladies, into america from the poorest international locations in Latin America, akin to Guatemala and El Salvador, the poorest international locations in Africa, akin to Zimbabwe and the Congo, and the poorest international locations in Asia, akin to India. It could not be laborious to get 50 million immigrants from these locations in a interval of, say, 5 years. They might profit and plenty of present U.S. households would profit from a dramatic fall in the price of childcare.
However that’s not the place Yglesias goes. As a substitute, he advocates huge new authorities applications to subsidize the availability of childcare. He writes that “america has been shamefully gradual in contrast with some peer international locations to offer sponsored baby care.” However the closest he involves explaining why U.S. coverage is shameful is to argue that as a result of different international locations are doing it, we must always too.
I say extra in that overview.
by C. Jarrett Dieterle, Motive, August 24, 2025.
Excerpt:
It’s laborious to oppose “transparency,” “frequent sense,” and “knowledgeable selections.” However labeling mandates all the time fall heaviest on the smallest of companies.
The idea of dietary and ingredient labeling is much more complicated within the alcohol house for the reason that TTB makes use of a pre-approval system for alcohol labeling, which means that alcohol producers should submit their proposed labels to the company for approval earlier than the product ever hits the market. No approval, no market entry. That is in marked distinction to most meals labeling, which the Meals and Drug Administration enforces after a product goes to market.
Not solely are most craft breweries, distilleries, and wineries small, native companies, however a lot of their enchantment is the ever-changing array of merchandise that they provide. A few of the most cutting-edge and in style microbreweries in America launch a number of new beers per week or month alongside seasonal releases that modify in availability relying on the time of yr.
Breweries typically launch annual merchandise, akin to Christmas Ales, that use the identical base set of spices however could have some small variations and tweaks from yr to yr. If these mandates are in place, a brewery might face the prospect of getting to get new labels preapproved each single yr, a time and price burden that few small breweries might take in.
Who knew that we in America, the land of the free, could be hemmed in by central planning on beer labels?
by Joe Lancaster, Motive, August 23, 2024.
Excerpts:
One of many nation’s largest automakers introduced this week that it was shifting its focus away from battery-powered electrical autos (E.V.s) in favor of hybrids that also use some quantity of gasoline. The choice to prioritize a transitional know-how is sensible, although federal regulators won’t be comfortable.
And:
Sadly, federal rules adopted this yr by the Environmental Safety Company (EPA) might complicate the swap.
In March, the EPA launched guidelines that may lower the variety of new gas-burning autos on the highway over the following decade. Underneath its “extra stringent emissions requirements” for shopper autos, the company foresaw that by 2032, 56 % of all new autos on the highway could be electrical, whereas solely 16 % could be hybrids.
