Without even knowing it, rapper Jay-Z just released one of the most free market albums of all time while reminding his listeners that financial freedom is the only way to escape their tumultuous circumstances.
The free market encourages some level of social morality, while collectivist economic systems undermine it. Yet 20th-century economist Wilhelm Röpke argued that we cannot rely primarily on the free market — and certainly not on the free market alone — to produce the social morality the market itself needs to thrive.
Puerto Rico’s foreclosure rate has more than doubled in the last decade after the island faced a real-estate crash even worse than the one the Great Recession. Last month Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy on its $73b debt, the largest in U.S. history. This is definitely about politics.
If Trump really wants to help liberate the people of Cuba, he should abolish government embargoes and demonstrate how amazing the free market really is.
“80 to 90 percent of all innovation projects fail,” Museum of Failure curator Samuel West told the Huffington Post, also mentioning that often, consumers are never even exposed to these products before they are pulled from the market. This mystery of innovative failure is what makes this museum so fascinating because at the end of the day, without market duds, we wouldn’t have those truly great products that prove themselves to consumers time and again.
Tucked away in the Rocky Mountains, the state of Utah is known as the industrious beehive state because of its tradition of hard work. While other states have been quick to shut down children wanting to learn about the free market, Utah has taken preemptive measures to protect minors in their quest to earn money.
As President of the Libertas Institute, Connor Boyack put it, “Let’s at least give kids a taste of the free market before the crushing bureaucracy weighs in upon them.”
At some point, and probably sooner than we think, the current left and right offerings of the major parties, including (perhaps especially) the populist, will start to appear ludicrous and unworkable. New political movements and ideas will arrive before long for this industrial revolution, especially once the majority of the population will soon have grown up online.
Droughts along the western United States are causing crucial wetlands to dry up, to the detriment of thousands of birds. So in 2014, the Nature Conservancy came up with a solution: pay farmers to flood their fields, creating pop-up wetlands. Thanks to markets, the farmers win and the birds win.
The European Commission, Parliament and Council (representing member states) agreed on Monday to a €120-million plan to install free wi-fi services in 6,000 to 8,000 municipalities across the EU by 2020. The scheme had been proposed by EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker last September. How the system will be funded will have to be discussed and agreed before local authorities can start applying to it.
Singapore is a young country, having only gained independence from the British in 1965. Since then, the country has been ruled solely by the People’s Action Party (PAP). Singaporean citizens also enjoy one of the relatively lowest tax rates in the world but the country also suffers from a severe lack of press freedom and LGBT rights.
