Articles

Populism and the economic failure of Puerto Rico

Free Market /

The governments in power (each one for a single four-year term) moved away from the possibility of promoting a long-term economic project and focused on managing the crisis within the political restrictions imposed by the four-year term. Politicians' addiction to taxes and debt to artificially keep the government apparatus alive cemented a narrative that government was essential at the expense of the productive sector. The government itself has created a dangerous spiral of economic contraction with higher taxes and spending.

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Free Market
Gustavo Velez
July 27, 2022
Populism and the economic failure of Puerto Rico

Hayek in The Foundations of Liberty: On Merit, Equality, and Social Justice

Individual Liberties /

The extension of the principle of equality to the rules of social and moral conduct is the main expression of what we commonly call the democratic spirit, and, probably, this spirit is what makes the inequalities that freedom inevitably provokes more harmless.

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Individual Liberties
Martin Krause
July 26, 2022

Florida started penalizing bureaucratic delay. Housing permits spiked.

Limited Government /

Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill that fundamentally changes the state’s permitting process for home building. It requires local jurisdictions to post online not only their permitting processes but also the status of permit applications. The transparency takes a good amount of mystery out of what can be an inscrutable branch of bureaucracy.

Florida started penalizing bureaucratic delay. Housing permits spiked. Read More »

Limited Government
Hayden Dublois
July 25, 2022

Puerto Rico urgently needs a facilitating government and a decentralized economy

Free Market /

One of the big problems we have in Puerto Rico is the worldview that the population has in relation to the functions of the state. We have become accustomed to seeing the government as the one that has to solve social problems, we justify its meddling in economic aspects and we even pay homage to politicians by treating them with certain airs of royalty.

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Free Market
Nilda Perez Martinez
July 14, 2022

Law 52: the latest nonsense of the Puerto Rico legislature

Property Rights /

One of the fundamental rights in our democratic and free enterprise system is the property and the possibility of freely disposing of it. The property right allows the effort of the initiative, work and creativity of human beings to be retained and materialized in a good or proprietary interest that the citizen can keep using and take advantage of. When the owner of that property understands that he must dispose of that property, he can do so freely.

Law 52: the latest nonsense of the Puerto Rico legislature Read More »

Property Rights
Carlos E. Diaz Olivo
July 5, 2022
Law 52: the latest nonsense of the Puerto Rico legislature

Labor reform: thickening the bureaucracy

Limited Government /

What is going to happen, write it down, is that entrepreneurs, large or small; merchants who will be affected in one way or another, will pass the blow to the consumer. That is not talked about. The governor did not mention it in his "vibrant" speech when signing the law. But it is something that cannot be avoided. The increase in the mesada, in the Christmas bonus or whatever, is going to be paid by the consumers in the can of sausages.

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Limited Government
Mayra Montero
June 22, 2022

The reform of the labor reform: blow to competitiveness

Free Market /

Instead of taking advantage of and promoting competition between the business sector, in order to ensure that they offer better compensation arrangements and employment conditions to attract the best available talent, the reform of the labor reform equalizes for all economic agents the basic costs of human capital, eliminating the aggressive competition that otherwise would have arisen.

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Free Market
Carlos E. Diaz Olivo
June 21, 2022

Market concentration: source of inflation at the local level?

Free Market /

By 2017, Puerto Rico had fewer registered establishments than each of the 50 states, adjusting for population, implying a higher market concentration in Puerto Rico, on average, than in the United States. These market shares have historically been divided among no more than 4-5 major competitors. Firms in concentrated industries, due to little competition, may raise prices in the face of increases in their costs above what they would rise in a competitive market.

Market concentration: source of inflation at the local level? Read More »

Free Market
Emanuelle Alemar
June 9, 2022
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