CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. Health
Michael Moore’s controversial documentary on health care in America, Sicko, opens nationwide.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Bureaucrash Crasher-in-Chief Jason Talley on the problem with socialized health care:
The American health care system is far from perfect, but the last thing that’s going to make it better is a new bureaucracy telling people when they can and can’t visit a doctor or schedule an operation. The horror stories coming out of nations with socialized health care systems – even highly developed countries like the UK and Canada – should be enough to tell us that less freedom and more government power is a lethal prescription.
2. Economics
Information Week assesses the influence and legacy of Bill Gates.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: President Fred L. Smith, Jr. on Bill Gates’ foray into philanthropy:
Traditional philanthropy is collective, tribal, even. The donor feels noble; paternalism reigns; poverty is perpetuated. Extending the institutions of economic liberty—even to the limited degree that this has occurred in China and India—has done more good than would have been achieved had Mr. Gates liquidated Microsoft and shipped all that money to Africa.
3. Technology
Universal Music Group refuses to renew its contract with Apple’s iTunes music service.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Scholar James Plummer on how markets can help protect intellectual property.
The rapid progression of technology and, concomitantly, consumer attitudes and behavior, poses problems for the content industries’ dominant paradigms and business models as configured today. Enforcement costs for protection of old models—encouraged and calcified by congressional expansion of the length of copyright terms—are mounting. Some rights holders are now developing promising new business models that recognize these realities. To encourage this trend, lawmakers should consider dismantling regulatory barriers—particularly antitrust—obstructing the development of potentially superior alternatives to legal copyright protection.
Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI’s blog, Open Market.
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