Russ Nelson

You will, from time to time, see people ask for more regulation of markets. I don't really need to cite any examples, do I? They're all over today's newspapers, claiming that unregulated or deregulated or free markets are responsible for the collapse of various businesses.

There is no such thing as an unregulated market, however. The term "free market" is a bit of misnomer. Participants in a free market are not free to do anything they want. If you fail to make a product that people choose to buy, that is a freedom you will find unavailable in a free market.

Let us be clear: there are markets which are regulated by politicians, and there are markets which are regulated by customers. There are no unregulated markets. There are no free markets. There are only markets in which customers are free to reward or punish businesses, and markets in which customers are prevented from rewarding or punishing businesses.

Which kind of that market do you want? One where you are free to buy or not buy? Or one where you are hampered?

John Kay makes a similar point.

29.99 km 98392.50 feet 18.63 mi 7561.00 seconds 126.02 minutes 2.10 hours 8.87 mi/hr

Today was open studio day for north country artists. We went up to visit Lamar Bliss and Susan Heberling. I bicycled home. It was a beautiful day, and I was on roads I hadn't ridden in many years. I wanted to go for a ride down Ireland Road, but couldn't find the house matching the name on the posted sign. Oh well, perhaps not wise to be riding down backwoods roads (even with permission) during hunting season.

The whole "health care reform" thing totally baffles me. Where do all these idiots (and yes, you ARE idiots) who support health care reform think the money is going to come from for all these improvements? Cost savings?? Sorry, idiots, but if savings were already available, insurance companies would have already gotten them, and kept them for themselves. Is that not completely obvious? It's GONNA cost more, and it's GONNA cover less.

There is a way to get more for less, but it requires that people understand and accept that free markets actually work. And yet there are so many people who are convinced that somehoww health care is some kind of magic market where the laws of economics don't fly, where pigs do fly, and where everyone can get all the health care they want for almost no money.

And a pony.

There is a major flaw in Soros' justification for spending $50m on a new think-tank. He derides "unchecked free markets" when in fact no such thing exists. You either have free markets checked by customer behavior, or you have markets which have been hampered by government action so producers are free to ignore customer behavior. An unchecked free market is an oxymoron.