t boone pickens

Markets vs. Special Interests

by Ryan Young on October 12, 2009

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Environment, Global Warming, Healthcare, Insurance, Politics as Usual, Regulation, Stimulus to Nowhere

Detractors of capitalism decry that it caters to special interests. The opposite is actually true. Just look at what’s happened in the last year.

Most of Wall Street came to government asking for a bailout when the government-created housing bubble popped.

The Big Three automakers also went to Washington for largesse when their customers came to prefer Toyotas and Hondas.

Health insurance companies stand to make a killing if Obamacare passes.

T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore would make millions from environmental legislation.

Ludwig von Mises explained the reason for all of this corrupt behavior with a single sentence back in 1949: “It is precisely the fact that the market does not respect vested interests that makes the people concerned ask for government interference.”
-Human Action, 4th Edition, p. 337.

Kudos to California

by Iain Murray on November 5, 2008

in Energy, Environment, Global Warming

Great result in California, where the voters figured out the plan by T Boone Pickens and his cronies at Chesapeake Energy to force people to buy their products. This despite the fact that Proposition 10 had been portrayed as “green” in a multimillion dollar propaganda campaign. Kudos to the environmental groups who opposed the swindle, thereby for once failing to play the Baptist to Pickens’ bootlegger. The Proposition failed by 5.5 million votes to 3.7 million.