By Monty Pelerin, on March 11th, 2010
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Washington is cleaning up the airline industry with more regulation. NOT!
This latest example of Washington intervention is more patently absurd than others. All are absurd; this example is just so simple that it is understandable without a complex chain of reasoning.
It is classic top-down management in a world that is run from the bottom up. It illustrates perfectly why reality cannot be legislated out of existence. Trying to do so always produces unintended consequences. In this, as in most examples to help consumers, your life has been made worse.
From the American Thinker:
Unintended Consequences of Regulatory Overreach: Airline Delays
Clarice Feldman
Hoping no doubt to curry favor with passengers beset by lengthy delays Administration bureaucrats set unconscionably high fines for delays. As a result airlines will simply cancel delayed flights rather than bear these punishing consequences for often unavoidable delay:
Under new federal guidelines that take effect next month, airlines can be fined up to $27,500 per passenger if a plane is stuck on the tarmac for longer than three hours.
“How can they say there is nothing wrong with having someone sit on a seat and run out of water and everything and sit on there for three, four, five hours? That’s ridiculous,” Kelly said.
With the new fines, a delayed MD-80 could cost American Airlines close to $4 million, and a fine for a full 757 could cost more than $5 million.
“It’s unavoidable that more flights will be canceled to avoid fines,” said American
Continue reading Another Blow to Air Passengers
By Monty Pelerin, on February 11th, 2010
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Milton Friedman on Socialized Medicine. From a talk given at the Mayo Clinic in 1978.
Although over 30 years old and focused on the medical industry, there are lessons here beyond the obvious. The semi-alert and above will recognize the process as a general one that applies to any industry in which the government becomes involved.
The video provides a prescient framework for where we were heading in 1978 and where we are in 2010. There is nothing new in this video in the sense that the insights were unique to Friedman. Economists have known these truths since before Adam Smith. What is unique is the clarity and force with which Friedman delivers the message. But that was not unique to this topic for Friedman. It was a staple of his discourse on any subject.
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Video Flashback: Milton Friedman and Two Big Government Schmucks (seekingalpha.com)
Economic Crisis 2008-9: Ignore Friedman’s Lessons at Your Peril (seekingalpha.com)
What Milton Friedman Actually Said About Campaign Finance (blogs.hbr.org)
Free to Choose with Milton Friedman (kottke.org)
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By Monty Pelerin, on February 10th, 2010 The irrepressible Milton Friedman speaking about tariffs. Common sense for more than 200 years that periodically needs repeating. As the political class discusses jobs and their creation, watch for free trade to come under attack. Send your representative this short video.
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By Monty Pelerin, on January 9th, 2010 All of us are going to die. Knowing how and when are answers we are not provided. The imposition of Obamacare does not provide answers, but for most of us the terminal event is likely to be sooner rather than later under Obamacare.
From the Wall Street Journal:
President Obama last year praised the Mayo Clinic as a “classic example” of how a health-care provider can offer “better outcomes” at lower cost. Then what should Americans think about the famous Minnesota medical center’s decision to take fewer Medicare patients?
Why would Mayo consider taking fewer Medicare patients? Undoubtedly, the answer is a surprise to public sector pinheads, but not to ordinary people:
Mayo says it lost $840 million last year treating Medicare patients, the result of the program’s low reimbursement rates. Its hospital and four clinics in Arizona—including the Glendale facility—lost $120 million. Providers like Mayo swallow some of these Medicare losses, while also shifting the cost by charging more to private patients and insurers.
The health care reform bill cuts back Medicare reimbursements even more, because that “savings” is needed of offset the costs of the new “reform.”
If the Mayo Clinic is President Obama’s model of cost-efficiency and they cannot afford to service Medicare patients under current reimbursements, just who does this Administration believe will be able to service Medicare patients, especially when rates will be reduced even more? That question should be bothering everyone, old and young. It won’t be answered because there is no acceptable answer!
Resources of
Continue reading You Are Going to Die
By Monty Pelerin, on December 21st, 2009 For those who want an explanation of how our health care system got so bad, the following article written in 2000 in The Freeman provides an answer. It was not the free market, but government intervention that brought us to this point. Sadly, we are now going to “fix” the system with the same medicine that has created the mess. We will turn the best health care system in the world, despite its faults, into a bigger disaster than most are capable of imagining.
Why Medicine Is Slowly Dying in America
Most Doctors and Patients are Clamoring for Increased Rights without Increased Responsibility
By Michael J. Hurd • February 2000 • Volume: 50 • Issue: 2
Michael Hurd (www.drhurd.com) is a psychologist in private practice in the Washington, D.C., area. He is the author of Effective Therapy (Dunhill, 1997) and Grow Up, America! (forthcoming). Dr. Hurd is the president of Living Resources, Inc., and publisher of “The Living Resources Newsletter.”
The American Medical Association recently voted to form a national union for physicians. It’s official. Doctors are now unionized—just like public school teachers, postal workers, and truck drivers.
In one sense, unionizing is a good step for doctors. Everybody asserts their health-care “rights” today except for physicians. We hear about patient rights and HMO rights and government rights. We never hear about the doctors’ rights. It’s time
Continue reading Medicine Dies in America
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Friedrich von Hayek
Friedrich von Hayek founded the Mont Pelerin Society.
“Monty Pelerin” is a pseudonym chosen by this blogger to convey general agreement with the philosophy, goals and spirit of the Mont Pelerin Society. No other connection exists between the blogger and the Society.
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