free market

See the following -

'Net Neutrality' Ruling Could Be Costly For Consumers, Advocates Say

Chris O'Brien, Salvador Rodriguez and Jim Puzzanghera | Los Angeles Times | January 14, 2014

An appeals court throws out the FCC's 'net neutrality' rules on Internet traffic. The ruling could raise Internet service fees and stifle innovation, some say. Read More »

'Open Source' Is Not 'Free Software'

In the open source universe, using terms such as FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) is common and represents a casual conflation of the terms open source and free software, which are often used interchangeably. I would be remiss if I didn't also admit that I have been guilty of same. I won't be doing that anymore—or at least I'll try not to—for a simple reason: Using the terms interchangeably is dangerous to the goals of free software and open media advocates (read "anti-DRM"). To continue this practice is to undermine beliefs that are fundamental to free software and associated movement...

'The Entrepreneurial State': Apple Didn't Build Your iPhone; Your Taxes Did

Mariana Mazzucato | PBS.org | September 20, 2013

Is government debt slowing economic growth, if not impeding it? The world-wide economic crisis that began in 2007 has kept that question alive, despite the fact that it was private debt that caused the crisis in the first place. But attempts to curb the crisis have also led to an explosion of public sector expenditures like bank bailouts and unemployment insurance that have ballooned debt levels. [...] Read More »

Americans Can’t Handle The Truth

Jim Clifton | LinkedIn | April 11, 2013

David Stockman’s new book, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, is getting a lot of attention these days. I recommend you don’t buy it. It’s much better to ignore the book and continue to listen to the White House and Wall Street, both of which tell us everything will work out just fine. Read More »

Consumer-Driven Health Plan Members More Likely To Use Health Apps

Jonah Comstock | Mobi Health News | January 2, 2013

A new report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) suggests that not only are people who are enrolled in consumer-driven health plans more cost conscious, but they’re also more engaged with mobile health and digital health tools. Read More »

Healthcare Isn't A Free Market, It's A Giant Economic Scam

Mike Masnick | Techdirt | February 22, 2013

You hear stories about crazy medical bills, but what very few people realize is that the reality of hospital bills can often be orders of magnitude more crazy than what most people expect. [...] Stephen Brill has a very long, but absolutely gripping, detailed analysis of the insanity of medical billing for Time Magazine... Read More »

How Billionaire "Philanthropy" Is Fueling Inequality And Helping To Destroy The Country

Prashanth Kamalakanthan | Truthout | August 19, 2013

Peter Buffett, the second son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, worries that the state of philanthropy in America “just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place.” At meetings of charitable foundations, he says “you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left.” [...] Read More »

The Conservative Case For A Higher Minimum Wage

Ron Unz | The Unz Review: An Alternative Media Selection | February 3, 2014

Over the last couple of months the minimum wage has moved into the political headlines, but most of the arguments for raising it have come from liberals. That’s fine, but since I’m not a liberal, I’d rather focus on the conservative reasons for supporting a much higher minimum wage, which are just as compelling. Read More »

The Long Con - "Charitable" Hospitals Make Multimillionaires Out Of Their CEOs

Roy M. Poses | Health Care Renewal | August 23, 2013

The CEOs of ostensibly charitable hospitals founded to serve the poor continue to become rich. The latest reminders are in two articles from Maryland, from DelMarVaNow, and from the Baltimore Sun,.and one from the Boston Globe. Read More »

White House Petition On Cellphone Unlocking Receives Over 100,000 Signatures

Derek Khanna | Forbes | February 25, 2013

At 7:37 AM EST on February 21, 2013, a White House petition on cellphone unlocking went over the 100,000 signature threshold on the White House’s “We the People” website.  This was the threshold for a White House response.  Now they will will wait to hear from the White House. How did we get here and what is cellphone unlocking? Read More »

Who Broke America’s Jobs Machine?

Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman | Washington Monthly | March 4, 2010

If any single number captures the state of the American economy over the last decade, it is zero. That was the net gain in jobs between 1999 and 2009—nada, nil, zip. By painful contrast, from the 1940s through the 1990s, recessions came and went, but no decade ended without at least a 20 percent increase in the number of jobs. Read More »