The University of Chicago’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1892

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The University of Chicago’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1892

Chicago Maroon

The University of Chicago’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1892

Chicago Maroon

Spitzer and the free market

Greg Mankiw had an interesting p

Greg Mankiw had an interesting post up today that describes a new law that New York Governor Elliot Spitzer has just approved that changes the laws that once capped the prices at which scalpers could re-sell Yankees tickets (I’m not sure if it is just Yankees tickets).Anyways, this is definitely good to see. Price caps end up hurting everyone involved, but lets not get all hung up on Spitzer’s embrace of the free-market. After all, this guy made a career out of vilifying it. This is from an Atlantic Monthly profile of Spitzer:

With thunder in the background, Spitzer delivers not a speech but a sermon. He attacks the free-market-is-everything theories of the “Chicago School” of economics. He evokes Teddy Roosevelt, and the need for government intervention against self-interested actors who would distort the market for their own ends.

Now, I don’t know enough about what was going down on Wall Street when Spitzer made a name for himself by going after large corporations for improprieties, but still, why does he have to drag the good name of the free market and the Chicago School into it?

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