I have posted here, here and here about the counterproductive effects of price gouging laws.
Have you heard about the awful gas lines in Florida following Hurricane Wilma? Were you able to figure out what the problem was? Think about it before you read Russell Robert’s explanation here. Were you able to do better than the news media?

Colorado may be losing its effective limits on government growth. Since 1992 the envy of the rest of the country, it now looks like they are falling for the seductive promises of big government. Check out this fine CATO piece that explains what is really going on.
Alas, it looks like November 1st will be a sad day for the prospects of liberty, opportunity and prosperity in Colorado.

Suppose an unskilled worker is fortunate enough to retain her job with a government mandated “living wage” increase in pay and no reduction in any other job related benefits. Even in that case she is unlikely to gain much (if at all). The reason is that she loses government sponsored cash and in-kind transfers, offsetting the increase in pay.
Here (pp. 12-17) are my 2002 estimates of the loss of government transfers as pay increases.

Here is an excellent piece by Frank Furedi. Excerpt:
“Political debate is often reduced to competing claims about what to fear. Claims about the threat of terrorism or child obesity or asylum seekers compete for the attention of the public. In this way, our anxieties become politicised and turned into a politics of fear. Health activists, environmentalists and advocacy groups are no less involved in using scare stories to pursue their agenda than politicians devoted to getting the public’s attention through inciting anxieties about crime and law and order.”
I recommend you read the whole thing. Hat tip to Craig Newmark.

Here is the reason we are unable to break the legislative monopoly in NM. Worse yet, unlike California, we don’t have initiative or referendum.