Schifference
Banned

Mises Wire Vincent Cook 09/20/2024 With Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris proposing costly new interventionist schemes and co-opting Republican talking points in order to neutralize the unpopularity of rising prices among swing voters, her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, has responded by stealing a page from the Democrat state-building playbook. He has raised the bidding for votes with a preposterous new interventionist proposal of his own—a plan to boost fertility rates by turning in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments into a free service, to be paid for by a combination of government subsidies and mandates on health insurers. Traditionally, advocacy of IVF subsidies has been a staple of the same groups on the “progressive” side of the culture wars that have championed government-subsidized abortions on demand, like the Center for Reproductive Rights. According to data from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, representing over 95 percent of IVF clinics in America, 390,000 IVF cycles were performed in 2022, which led to 91,771 births. The current cost of IVF and related procedures ranges from $15,000 to $30,000 per IVF cycle, making total current expenditures on the order of $8 billion per year. Murray Rothbard’s theoretical analysis of the economics of “free” services and the incidence of government-imposed extortion implies that the costs of providing IVF treatments for “free” could be far, far higher. There are estimates that only a quarter of those who desire IVF treatments can actually afford them at current prices, so artificially reducing the price paid by patients to zero might mean at least a four-fold increase in the number of IVF cycles administered. It might even mean more if clinics (which would also have no incentive to control costs) encourage a greater number of cycles per patient to increase the chances of achieving a successful pregnancy.

Mises Wire Allen Gindler 09/20/2024 The American political landscape is often perceived as sharply divided between left and right, with the Democratic Party representing the left and the Republican Party, by default, occupying the right. However, a deeper analysis of the policies and rhetoric of current presidential and vice-presidential candidates reveals a more complex reality. Using a framework of political analysis that considers attitudes towards private property rights, collectivization of consciousness, and wealth redistribution, it becomes evident that the United States is experiencing a gradual—but steady—shift towards the left.