Innovation and market disruption can be powerful forces for economic growth. But government involvement in the market tends to be a force against disruption, and hence a force against innovation. The drive to protect the dominant companies – often justified in the name of job preservation — prevents success for companies that offer better, cheaper, or different products or services. The European Union received a frank lesson in these economic truths when it brought Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary to speak at its recent innovation convention. In a rousing and thoroughly …
When gas prices surpassed $4 per gallon last summer, it forced families to cancel their vacations. Not only was the day-to-day driving eating up families’ budgets, but it made the cost of traveling somewhere for vacation all that more expensive. Purchasing airline tickets was out of the question for many. If cap and trade becomes law, news could only get worse for the air travelers and the airline industry. From CQ Politics: “The most recent draft of the Senate bill by John Kerry, D-Mass., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., includes aircraft …
