The Open Market Blog

• By: Doug Bandow
• 12/10/2007

Air travel accounts for about three percent of greenhouse gases, so even if you think the planet is warming out of control, grounding all planes…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 12/10/2007

The myth of nationalized health care is that it provides everyone with equal and inexpensive care. Alas, in the real world the only way…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 12/03/2007

The title of this New York Times article today says it all: “Truckers in Maine, Feeling High Costs of Diesel Fuel, Urge State to…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/26/2007

Poverty, the horrendous poverty so common in most of the world, can only shock the average Westerner.  But we in the West once were that…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/26/2007

There’s a lot of bad news in the world these days.  A bit of good news is the approach of trials of several leaders of…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/26/2007

It's enough to make the average Canadian cry.  The decent folk up north fervently defend their health care system from attack.  But, it turns out,…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/26/2007

“Consumer advocates”–who spend their time demanding that everyone toss money at anyone who “consumes” a product or service, are on the march, this time against…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/26/2007

Government regulation almost always is biased towards inaction and prohibition.  Making a "mistake" and allowing something to happen will usually get you into far greater…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/26/2007

There may be no better evidence of change in China than the fact that the government now occasionally admits that problems exist in the country. …

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/20/2007

With the trial bar hovering around your house, ready to file an obesity lawsuit on behalf of the guests on whom you have forced slices…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/19/2007

Every health care system is going to have some “horror stories,” and the U.S. system is no different. But it’s important for Americans to realize…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/19/2007

Thus argues John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel. Admittedly, he’s not a Ph.D climatologist, but then, most of the alarmist propagandists aren’t Ph.D climatologists,…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/15/2007

In today’s educational monopoly, it seems that even progress can have counterproductive consequences. For instance, the growth of public charter schools, which appear to deliver…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/14/2007

Another study reports on the costs of obesity. Just dropping down to European levels would save $100 billion in extra medical costs. Reports Nurse.com:…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/14/2007

Critics of the U.S. health care system have a litany of complaints. Some are true, but highly misleading. N. Gregory Mankiw takes on three of…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/07/2007

The Beijing Olympics are less than a year away, and China hopes to showcase its growing economy and expanding international influence. China is a fascinating…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/06/2007

Finally, after nearly seven years of approving every big spending bill to hit his desk, President George W. Bush is occasionally saying no to budget…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/06/2007

It doesn’t matter how often politicians fail. They keep coming back with grand new schemes for transforming their own, and often other people’s, societies. And…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 11/01/2007

The time for wimpy, squishy, liberal environmentalism is past. The crisis is so deep that it’s time to take more, shall we say, “serious” steps.

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/30/2007

How you can profit from the coming nuclear holocaust will likely be the next publication by the conservative site Newsmax. After all, it just sent…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/30/2007

It appears that the Communist Party of China occasionally makes a mistake. Too bad millions of people already have paid a price and millions more…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/30/2007

The health care mess is complicated. It's a strange mix of government and private, with perverse tax incentives skewing the entire system. Handing the whole…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/29/2007

The problems of the health care system are many and complex--burdensome state regulation, massive federal programs, counterproductive tax incentives, and the popular presumption that health…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/29/2007

It's time to pull out the world's smallest violin for The Nation magazine. They are lefties, but at a time when the conservative establishment is…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/29/2007

Trade sanctions are a favorite foreign policy tool, but they don't have a very good record. It's hard to find a case where sanctions forced…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/26/2007

It may be a forlorn hope that politicians of either party will ever be truly fiscally responsible, opposing spending programs that either are not authorized…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/26/2007

There's nothing new about partisans playing hardball when it comes to politics. But it is unusual when partisans attempt to jail their opponents. That apparently…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 10/16/2007

Government finances are suffering, spending on the Iraq war continues to escalate while Social Security and Medicare continue to head over the financial cliff. Yet…