North Carolina Using Eminent Domain To Seize Homes and a Church for Electric Car Factory
Under the Kelo v. New London Supreme Court decision, a state can take private land to give to a private developer for almost any reason it wants.
Crony Capitalism
America Needs a Better Kind of Capitalism
Big corporations and entire industries constantly use their connections in Congress to get favors, no matter which party is in power.
The Government Is Subsidizing Microchip Firms—While Making It More Expensive To Produce Microchips
Politicians say they want to subsidize various industries, but they sabotage themselves by weighing the policies down with rules that have nothing to do with the plans.
PredictIt Helps Forecast Election Results. Bureaucrats Are Trying To Kill It.
Election betting markets are often more reliable than pundits. Did the site steal user funds? No. Did they lie to people? No. Harm anyone? No.
Youngkin Nixes Ford Electric Vehicle Plant Over Anti-China Paranoia
The factory may have been a bad deal for Virginia, but tying the decision to Chinese aggression is the wrong move.
Is It 'Treason' To Support Free Trade?
Shipping industry insiders floated a recommendation to charge critics of the Jones Act with treason, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Politicians Who Supported $54 Billion in Airline Bailouts Now Pose as Industry Critics
Political criticism of Southwest's mass flight cancelations mask a cronyist relationship between government and the passenger airline industry.
Free Market Think Tank Names Georgia Electric Vehicle Plant the 'Worst Economic Development Deal of 2022'
Rivian, an electric truck manufacturer that hopes to compete with Tesla, received a lucrative deal to build a new factory in Georgia despite concerns about its finances.
Semiconductor Manufacturers Don't Need More Subsidies. They Need Less Government.
Fixing federal permitting rules and easing immigration policies would help companies like the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which are interested in building more plants in America.
Farm Subsidies and Food Stamps Won't Fix High Grocery Prices. Innovation Will.
With government meddling, many farmers end up doing less with more, and people end up paying more for less.
Markets Aren't Perfect, but Government Is Worse
The free market allows people to cooperate, fix errors, and adapt to changing circumstances.
Somebody in the Shipping Industry Wants Opponents of the Jones Act Charged with Treason
There’s nothing patriotic about a law lining the pockets of cargo companies at the expense of consumers.
Ohio Pledges Over $150 Million in Taxpayer Money for Honda Factories
Honda, one of the world's largest automakers, announced it would spend $4 billion building and upgrading factories in Ohio. The state is showering it with public funds anyway.
The Government Should Be Pro-Market, Not 'Pro-Business'
Businesses are all in favor of competition, tax cuts, and deregulation only until they aren't—meaning only until subsidies might benefit them.
Ford's E.V. Charger Mandate Shows How Broken Dealership Laws Are
The current franchise dealership model does not benefit consumers. It also may not benefit dealerships.
Brett Favre Goes on Welfare
How the former NFL quarterback convinced Mississippi to spend its public assistance money on a volleyball facility.
The Biden Administration Is Taking From the Poor and Giving to the Rich
From student debt cancellation to green subsidies, the White House is giving handouts paid for by hardworking lower-wage Americans.
A Few Ideas for the Better Government Americans Desperately Want
From cronyist subsidies to an unfair tax code, there are several key fixes Congress could make to better serve the public.
The Democrats' New Inflation Bill Includes Tax Credits for Electric Vehicles That Don't Exist
Even Democrats are criticizing the bill's unrealistic expectations.
The CHIPS Act Is Corporate Welfare Disguised as Industrial Policy
If you believe that moving most of our chip production onshore is good for national security, you should labor for regulatory reforms rather than subsidies.
Terrible Restrictions on Food Trucks Are Still a Thing
Atlanta, Sioux Center, and too many other cities and towns are still treating food trucks like second-class businesses.
Crony Capitalism Is Apparently Business-Friendly
North Carolina wins "America's Top State for Business" by picking winners and losers.
South Carolina Will Let This Hospital Bypass Its Certificate of Need Laws, but That's It
Another example of the infuriating cronyism behind CON regulations, which won't apply to a well-established hospital in Charleston that's looking to move.
Biden's Plan for Reducing Inflation Will Actually Make It Worse
The president's argument is amazing for its tone-deafness, inconsistent thinking, and sheer economic ignorance.
No, Florida Republicans Do Not Care About Crony Capitalism
The state has 1,288 independent special districts. But we aren't hearing significant GOP complaints about anyone's but Disney's.
The Export-Import Bank's New 'Made in America' Corporate Welfare Scheme
The bank's new domestic financing program is a poorly defined, unnecessary exercise that will throw taxpayer money at projects the private capital markets have deemed too risky.
Congress' Latest Attempt To Rein In Big Tech Will Hurt Consumers
Those who demand a revival of antitrust regulation to "promote competition" may not realize that they're inciting a revival of cronyism to suppress competition.
Good Riddance to Ralph Northam and Terry McAuliffe
Virginia is moving on without the Democratic duo.
Elon Musk: Government Is 'the Biggest Corporation, With a Monopoly on Violence, Where You Have No Recourse'
Musk's finally ready to admit that government subsidies distort markets and that government actors are terrible at capital allocation.
Amy Klobuchar and Tom Cotton's Big Tech Anti-Monopoly Bill Exempts Their Preferred Firms
Plus: Much ado about Big Bird, one neat trick for fixing Facebook (do nothing), and more...
If Democrats Truly Wanted To Level the Playing Field, They'd End Crony Corporate Handouts
They give an edge to big companies that have no problems accessing capital and whose executives are often well-connected with politicians.
America's Shipping Laws Made the Gas Crisis Worse
The protectionist Jones Act makes it harder to move fuel around the country.
Why the Conservative War on Woke Capital Is Doomed To Fail
It will be coopted by regulation-loving progressives who oppose capitalism, not wokeness.
Trump's Tariffs Made D.C. Swampier as Senators, Lobbyists Sought Special Favors for Connected Companies
Sen. Josh Hawley, a supporter of Trump's trade policies, lobbied to give a special exemption to a Missouri-based power tools manufacturer. Many other elected officials did too.
The Foxconn Con
The company's Wisconsin outpost was supposed to create 13,000 jobs; as of this year it employed no more than 281 people.
$75 Billion in Band-Aids Won't Cure Ailing Airlines
Airlines keep claiming they need a second bailout to bring back 35,000 furloughed employees. Don't buy their argument.
Sometimes Bigger Is Better
Republicans and Democrats are working together on an antitrust push against big tech. It will backfire big-time.
Glenn Greenwald on Biden, Free Speech, and Leaving The Intercept
There’s no journalist more relentlessly iconoclastic than Greenwald, who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Snowden revelations.
Glenn Greenwald: Nothing Trump Did Compares to the 'Moral Evil' of Bush's and Obama's Wars
The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist on Joe Biden, free speech, and leaving The Intercept for Substack.
Trump's Foxconn Deal Became Just Another Government Development Debacle
The Taiwanese manufacturer promised Trump and then–Governor Scott Walker 13,000 new jobs and a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant. They've delivered a mostly empty building that's one-twentieth the promised size.
Welfare for the Rich
The book details how the wealthy use the power of the state to snatch your money for their farms, stadiums, banks, real estate developments, and more.
$75 Billion in Band-Aids Won't Cure Ailing Airlines
The grants and loans Congress has approved for the airline industry aren't about saving jobs.
Why Are American Taxpayers Propping Up Mexico's Insolvent, Government-Owned Oil Company?
A supposedly "reformed" Export-Import bank is back to its old ways.
Our SCOTUS Wars Were a Long Time Coming
The fight to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg reveals a long-degraded political culture.
The Export-Import Bank's China Program Lacks Vision
Policymakers have become convinced that the crony capitalist institution is the ideal tool for countering the influence of the PRC.
Airlines Are Asking for a Second Bailout. Congress Should Say No.
The federal government has already made $32 billion available to distressed airlines. The industry wants another $25 billion.
Why Does Hollywood Hate Real Estate Developers?
The typecasting of builders as villains might help explain why NIMBYs so often win the policy battles over urban growth and development.
The Trump Administration's $765 Million Kodak Deal Is More Proof That 'Economic Nationalism' Is a Scam
The Trump administration's "economic nationalist" agenda is little more than a cronyist attempt at propping up domestic companies with taxpayer cash.
