Statists look at desirable goods, decide what the price should be - often concluding it should be $0.00 - and work backward from there. Free markets try to meet demand by increasingly supply, and increase demand by reducing price. The statist approach is a train wreck.
Controlling prices by political fiat is like trying to steer a horse by yanking on its tail. Everything else in the economic chain malfunctions when the price output is controlled like that. You're about to get another demonstration thanks to Biden's illegal eviction moratorium.
Notice how interventions to fix the price of labor tend to increase unemployment and throw other aspects of the labor market out of whack. It happens every time politicians decide they know better than free people what the price of goods and services should be.
The healthiest response to observing high demand and limited supply is to figure out how supply can be increased. People want it, or need it? Let's make more!

Political tinkering with prices short-circuits that healthy impulse.
Political price-fixing usually comes along with subsidies for private industries, to keep them from going bankrupt under those Ruling Class price edicts. This numbs the business sector to rational inputs and weakens its competitive muscles. It's systemic corruption.
Price-fixing usually ends up causing shortages or sharply reducing the value and quality of the politically ordained goods. Both happen routinely under rent control regimes. Obamacare's price controls created the garbage insurance policies we're forced to live with today.
Ask your grandparents what happened to the quality of meat when government decided what the prices should be. The examples go on and on. A consistent theme of price controls is that politicians ignore the costs they don't understand, or that don't fit with their ideology.
That's especially noticeable when it comes to risk, a factor statists are incapable of properly appreciating because their ideology says they control the entire universe through political will, so risk is a nonfactor. If they decree a thing is good, it happens, period.
In the real world, risk has an enormous dollar value, and it's factored into prices. For example, every landlord must account for the risk that renters will damage his property, or refuse to pay their rent. This risk is mitigated by the option of eviction and factored into rents.
If you tell landlords they can't evict tenants - that they will in fact be treated like criminals, fined, jailed, and perhaps killed for resisting arrest if they do - the risk becomes unlimited, and they'll compensate by charging higher rents, or refusing to rent at all.
Politicians will predictably respond by labeling the nervous landlords as evil villains and attempting to nationalize their property, painting themselves as saviors for taking bold action to ensure affordable rents are available to all - especially their favored constituents.
This is an implicit assertion that the value of risk is minimal and should have no effect on rental prices. Politicians will decide what the price should be, disregarding the costs they don't understand or dismiss as irrelevant. The result will be a predictable disaster
Socialists are always nattering on about socializing costs, but most of what they demand really boils down to fixing prices and expecting magic to take care of everything else. We're in a political war to decide who should set the price of everything. /end

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with John Hayward

John Hayward Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Doc_0

4 Aug
Freedom, capitalism, property rights, and the rule of law are inextricably linked.

Each flows into the other. All are weakened when any are attacked. All are vital to sustain a republic of sovereign individuals. The enemies of freedom understand this better than its defenders.
If you don't really own your property, you can't fully engage in capitalism. If you can't use your capital as you see fit, you don't really own it. If property rights are not protected, there is no true rule of law, only abstract ideals and exercises of political power.
Property rights give muscle and bone to the core freedom, the one that really matters: the right to refuse, to say "no." If your property rights are not respected, you can be forced to do just about anything. Ambitious tyrants will never stop inventing ways to compel you.
Read 13 tweets
2 Aug
Some politically-motivated vaccine resistance was doubtless caused by Biden trying to erase Trump's contribution to vaccine development. Biden Dems turned the shots into a partisan political football as fast as they could, because they assumed everyone wanted them.
We're talking about a few months ago. It's not hard to remember how it went down. Biden's handlers assumed the shots were a golden gift that couldn't be squandered, no matter how aggressively they politicized vaccination. Biden's first few months were one long end-zone dance.
Dems were more interested in setting up political victory laps and daydreaming about "How Joe Biden Cured Covid" headlines than reaching across the aisle for a nonpartisan vaccine drive. They were trying to airbrush Trump out of the picture. His angry supporters noticed.
Read 6 tweets
29 Jul
The variables have changed, but this still is - and always has been - about rationally balancing risks and rewards, costs and benefits. Our society's inability to do so, crippled by hysterical media and opportunistic politicians, has cost us dearly.
It's no surprise that we've come to this state. The great project of the political class across most of my lifetime has been aggressively destroying the ability of the American people to measure costs against benefits and make rational decisions. It's been a cultural lobotomy.
In a way, politics has always been an extreme form of salesmanship, which always seems to minimize a customer's perception of cost and maximize perceived value. Politics takes salesmanship to another level, utterly divorced from reality.
Read 13 tweets
28 Jul
The 1/6 rioters should be treated with the same severity as Black Lives Matter rioters. Since that is not remotely possible, all else is political theater and raw exercises of power, and I am weary of pretenses to the contrary.
I'm weary of our ruling class sending the message that your home, business, and personal safety are at the mercy of violent Demcorat-approved grievance groups, but don't you DARE do anything that makes the aristocracy in D.C. uncomfortable.
I'm tired of hearing the Abolish the Police Party demand limitless scrutiny and aggressive defunding of the police who protect the rest of us, but unquestioning support and increased funding for the police who protect THEM. Why not protect the Capitol with social workers, huh?
Read 18 tweets
27 Jul
I can't help thinking that if "The Exorcist" happened today, the demon Pazuzu would spend less time spitting pea soup vomit and more time setting up a TikTok account.
The demon's every foul utterance to the possessed girl's mother and the exorcists would be followed by it triumphantly holding up its iPad to show how many likes and upvotes it got.
Father Karras: The power of Christ compels you!

Demon: (shrugs) Hey, that thing I said about what your mom is doing in Hell got 32,000 likes already. You should see the emojis people are sending me!
Read 5 tweets
27 Jul
Why is anyone surprised that so many Americans believe corruption is pervasive, every system is rigged, and the powerful are conspiring against them? They've been told all their lives that every system MUST be rigged, in order to achieve "social justice."
We middle-aged folks might dimly remember a time when prejudice was considered universally wrong and equal treatment was the highest virtue, but the younger generations are taught every day that "equality" is a scam by the privileged to retain their ill-gotten power.
Today Americans are explicitly taught that every scale must have thumbs on it, every test must be rigged and slanted, and every decision must be prejudiced in order to redistribute power and wealth, correct past injustices, and achieve "equity."
Read 13 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(