Thursday, October 12, 2017

NCAA Cartel

Bryan Caplan provides some wise thoughts related to the  “controversy” a few months back when Vice President Pence declined to attend dinner with another female without his wife.  He reminds us that even in something as simple as men and women socializing with one another, we can never forget to consider the seen and the unseen, the cost and the benefit.  Read his brief blog to understand. 
Capitalism means nice guys (and girls) finish first. Crony capitalism (read capitalism with government regulation) means nice guys finish last.
“But to me, the evidence is all around: we ride Uber and Lyft, we subscribe to Netflix, we expect free two-day deliveries with Amazon Prime, we take pride in being foodies, and we spend copious amounts of time on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. All of these everyday delights we take for granted are the fruits of the labor of free minds, free peoples, and free markets.”
Monetarism and Keynesianism are two sides of the same coin says Stockman.  I concur.
“The answer to every economic problem is one version of statism or another. If monetarism doesn’t succeed in “pump priming” with credit and inflation “stimulus” then surely the fiscal side will with “automatic stabilizers” and indiscriminate government expansion. These two grand economic strategies are often separated as if they are distinct sets of disparate theory; they are not. They represent two sides of the same coin, both being different means to accomplish redistribution as economic catalyst and forward agent.”
“Mises was not primarily anti-socialist. He was pro-capitalist. His opposition to socialism, and to all forms of government intervention, stemmed from his support for capitalism and from his underlying love of individual freedom and conviction that the self-interests of free men are harmonious — indeed, that one man’s gain under capitalism is not only not another’s loss, but is actually others’ gain. Mises was a consistent champion of the self-made man, of the intellectual and business pioneer, whose activities are the source of progress for all mankind and who, he showed, can flourish only under capitalism.”
I agree, a Nobel Prize for Mises.  Required reading of Mises works in all colleges and universities would greatly benefit the world.
“He deserves to receive every token of recognition and memorial that our society can bestow. For as much as anyone in history, he labored to preserve it. If he is widely enough read, his labors may actually succeed in saving it.”



AV à Indeed, Mark Perry is correct.  The NCAA is nothing but a cartel provider of athletic talent.  It is not a surprise that when a scarce resource (in this case basketball talent) is not distributed via the price system, black markets will sprout up.  Black markets have always existed and will always exist in places where complete and total laissez-faire capitalism absent.  Any and all regulation is bad regulation for this purpose. 

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