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Items by S.M. Oliva
Mises Economics Blog
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Patenting Regulation
Posted: September 6th, 2010, 6:59am PDT by S.M. Oliva
Bryan McKenzie of the Charlottesville Daily Progress reports that small banks are confused by new federal “regulations” that seem to appear at random:With a quarter-century in the industry, Patricia G. Satterfield has long recognized that regulation of banks is a subjective practice. But the ... -
Freedom Is an Academic Right, Not a Business Privilege
Posted: August 31st, 2010, 2:32pm PDT by S.M. Oliva
Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, the attorney general of Virginia, issued administrative subpoenas earlier this year to the University of Virginia — a corporation created and run by the state — seeking documents related to the work of former professor Michael Mann, a co-author of the ... -
This Speaks For Itself
Posted: August 31st, 2010, 6:12am PDT by S.M. Oliva
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, interviewed in USA Today:Q: What’s the result of the Wild Oats merger?A: The end result is that it’s been great. Our Wild Oats same — store sales were up like 16% in the second quarter.Q: Would you do that ... -
Religion vs. Scientism
Posted: August 30th, 2010, 12:22pm PDT by S.M. Oliva
Edwin S. Rockefeller, a longtime antitrust lawyer and onetime chair of the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Section, has said, “Antitrust is a religion.” He did not mean that in a good way. His 2007 book, aptly titled The Antitrust Religion, explains that antitrust is ... -
Deception v. Fraud
Posted: August 27th, 2010, 3:28pm PDT by S.M. Oliva
As I noted yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission now punishes individuals who publish comments online about products for sale without disclosing their own “material interest” in the product. The FTC’s complaint said that it violates federal law to deprive consumers of facts that “would ... -
Use Caution When Commenting On This Post
Posted: August 26th, 2010, 11:40am PDT by S.M. Oliva
The Federal Trade Commission is now actively policing comments left on commercial websites and punishing individual commenters who do not disclose their business interests to the government’s satisfaction. In a proposed order announced today, the FTC accused Reverb Communications, Inc., a public relations firm ... -
Fishy Business
Posted: August 25th, 2010, 6:17am PDT by S.M. Oliva
Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports calls out the “swindlers” who run Major League Baseball’s Florida Marlins for lying toA look at the leak of the Marlins’ financial information to Deadspin confirmed the long-held belief that the team takes a healthy chunk of MLB-distributed money ... -
Buy First, Think Second, Sue Third
Posted: August 24th, 2010, 8:11am PDT by S.M. Oliva
“Too many ‘free’ offers come with strings attached,” warned David Vladeck recently. Who is David Vladeck? Why, he’s the person in charge of protecting you from unscrupulous businesses. Vladeck is director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, and his warning came in ... -
The Cost of Government Economic Planning
Posted: August 22nd, 2010, 2:00pm PDT by S.M. Oliva
It’s the economic question of our time, posed via Twitter by Brooke Oberwetter:Stand-alone cupcake stores: What’s the f*cking business model? How long can $3 cupcakes demand possibly be sustained? Nonsense.This is not a new question. I alluded to the $3 cupcake phenomenon in ... -
Government Roid Rage Returns
Posted: August 19th, 2010, 1:16pm PDT by S.M. Oliva
A federal grand jury indicted former Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens today for lying about his alleged personal use of anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, and vitamin B12. In addition to perjury and false statements charges, the grand jury also accused Clemens of “obstruction ... -
The Mystery of the 48 Pages
Posted: August 18th, 2010, 6:01pm PDT by S.M. Oliva
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed two months ago, the Federal Trade Commission refused to disclose 48 pages of documents related to the agency’s exclusive contract with an outside company to handle funds and customer data obtained in so-called consumer ... -
Regulatory Bogeys
Posted: August 15th, 2010, 8:25pm PDT by S.M. Oliva
Rule 13-4 of the Rules of Golf prohibit a player from touching the ground with his club while making a shot inside a bunker. The penalty for breach of this rule is two strokes added to the player’s score. Anyone who was unaware of this ... -
No Honor in Contracts?
Posted: August 12th, 2010, 8:41am PDT by S.M. Oliva
Darelle Revis signed a six-year contract with the New York Jets in 2007 that guaranteed him at least $11 million in base salary and bonuses. His base salary for the upcoming 2010 season is $550,000, which is relatively low for a player of his position, ... -
Can Lawyers Design Computer Chips?
Posted: August 4th, 2010, 10:50am PDT by S.M. Oliva
The Federal Trade Commission published its order against Intel today. Most of the order actually deals with intellectual property issues, a domain the FTC has progressively tried to wrestle away from the patent system and the courts. This order does bring the FTC ... -
The Marriage of State & Press
Posted: August 4th, 2010, 7:17am PDT by S.M. Oliva
This has been coming for awhile. Yesterday Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus—the wife of Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz—wrote a critical column on the ethical troubles of House Democrats Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters:I’m certainly not suggesting that most lawmakers are as heedless ... -
The Sociopaths Win Again
Posted: August 3rd, 2010, 2:53pm PDT by S.M. Oliva
And now for our “Narcissistic State Announcement of the Week“:Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz will be joined by Bureau of Competition Director Richard Feinstein at FTC Headquarters on Wednesday, August 4, 2010, at 10:00 a.m. ET to detail the terms of the Commission’s ... -
Court Declares iPhone Owners Victims
Posted: August 1st, 2010, 5:04am PDT by S.M. Oliva
Ted Frank of the Center for Class Action Fairness reports that a federal court has certified an antitrust class action brought on behalf of all iPhone owners—alleging Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T illegally monopolizes the market for “iPhone telephone service.” Frank notes this is ... -
Outing a Closeted Statist
Posted: July 31st, 2010, 9:59am PDT by S.M. Oliva
Berin Szoka, a self-described “cyber-libertarian” attorney who works for the DC-based Progress and Freedom Foundation, felt it necessary to backpedal recently on his criticism of the Federal Trade Commission. Szoka wrote on July 13 that he and his PFF colleagues are “actually big fans ... -
UK Yields to Racist American Prosecutors
Posted: July 28th, 2010, 9:30am PDT by S.M. Oliva
Earlier this year the Obama administration kidnapped Ian Norris, a British citizen and former chief executive of Morgan Crucible, and forced him to stand trial on fabricated “obstruction of justice” charges. A Philadelphia jury acquitted him of that and several lesser charges, but convicted him ... -
FTC Hurts Monopoly to Help Monopoly
Posted: July 28th, 2010, 7:23am PDT by S.M. Oliva
The Federal Trade Commission’s time machine worked its magic again, restoring the market for a particular group of herbicides to its pre-2008 condition:Australian chemical company Nufarm Limited has agreed to sell certain assets and modify some of its business agreements to settle Federal Trade ... -
Death Tax Musings
Posted: July 19th, 2010, 6:02am PDT by S.M. Oliva
I was reading a Beltway columnist’s cry this morning over the can’t-return-quickly-enough federal death tax. The tax does not apply for deaths in 2010 — but it will for deaths in 2011 and beyond — which means George Steinbrenner’s sons were spared one heckuva tax ... -
Assessing Over-Assessment
Posted: July 17th, 2010, 4:24am PDT by S.M. Oliva
This should be obvious, but the reason governments can’t stop themselves from inflating real estate bubbles is that taxes based on the “assessed” value of real estate are the lifeblood of most local governments. It’s always in the government’s interest to value real property as ... -
Never Hire a Fox to Guard Your Henhouse
Posted: July 16th, 2010, 10:46am PDT by S.M. Oliva
For the second time this week, the Federal Trade Commission ordered a company to undo a previously completed merger. Today the FTC announced Fidelity National Financial, Inc., will sell a number of property title databases to Commission-selected buyers. The FTC said Fidelity’s 2008 ... -
Some Things Still Can’t Be Copyrighted
Posted: July 15th, 2010, 3:43pm PDT by S.M. Oliva
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals entered the following “unpublished” decision today in Novak v. Warner Brothers Pirctures, LLC:Deborah Novak, John Witek, and Witek & Novak, Inc., (collectively, the “Producers”) hold the copyright in Ashes to Glory, a documentary film that portrays the rebuilding of ... -
U.S., NC Regulators In Mexican Standoff
Posted: July 15th, 2010, 2:12pm PDT by S.M. Oliva
As I reported last month, the Federal Trade Commission issued an administrative complaint against the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners, “alleging that it is harming competition by blocking non-dentists from providing teeth-whitening services in the state.” Unfortunately for the FTC, ...