USA Today has a column suggesting that airlines, like beer companies, should be allowed to consolidate internationally. The writer calls the law preventing any foreign carrier from owning more than 49% of a U.S. airline "insanely outdated."

Libertarian law professor Richard Epstein's latest weekly column is about the First Amendment rights of union members. He suggests getting rid of the agency shop for public employees.

"It's hard to imagine that Mr. Boehner, Mr. Reid, and Mr. Sanders all live their lives without wearing or using anything that is made in China."— "Beach Volleyball Player Smarter Than Senators," FutureOfCapitalism.com post, July 13

"Will some enterprising reporter please ask Senator Reid for the opportunity to inspect the senator's closet and check the labels of his clothing to make sure they are all American-made?" — "Harry Reid's Wardrobe," Greg Mankiw's blog, July 17

President Obama's standard campaign stump speech is a collection of half-truths and misrepresentations, even by the expansive standards of American politics. That's the topic of my weekly column. Please check it out at Newsmax (here), at the New York Sun (here), and at Reason (here).

"The lower cost of the Chinese-made uniforms means that Ralph Lauren has more money to spend advertising on American-made television programs, or that the Olympic Committee has more money to spend on fancy training centers for athletes." — "Beach Volleyball Player Smarter Than Senators," FutureOfCapitalism.com post, July 13

"Olympic uniforms are an easy patriotic riff, but no doubt they were contracted to be made in China to save money. Where would you rather have the U.S. Olympic Committee spend its marginal dollars—on training for the athletes to win more medals, or on high-priced berets?" — Wall Street Journal editorial, July 16.

Niall Ferguson, writing in NewsBeast:

more is going on here than deleveraging. Consider this: the U.S. economy has created 2.6 million jobs since June 2009. In the same period, 3.1 million workers have signed up for disability benefits. Back in 1992 there was one person on disability benefits for every 36 people in employment. Now the ratio is 1 to 16. Unemployment is being concealed—and rendered permanent—in ways all too familiar to Europeans.

I don't doubt that there are some genuinely disabled people who can't work, or who at least can't work productively enough to make it worthwhile for an employer to pay them the government-mandated minimum wage plus the "wedge" of employment taxes, workers compensation insurance, etc. That said, at the margins, if the government pays people not to work, some people will make the choice not to work.

The California tax authorities may want to audit Slate's technology columnist, who begins an article about Amazon.com by writing:

Amazon has long enjoyed an unbeatable price advantage over its physical rivals. When I buy a $1,000 laptop from Wal-Mart, the company is required to collect local sales tax from me, so I pay almost $1,100 at checkout. In most states, Amazon is exempt from that rule. According to a 1992 Supreme Court ruling, only firms with a physical presence in a state are required to collect taxes from residents. Technically, when I buy a $1,000 laptop from Amazon, I'm supposed to pay a $100 "use tax" when I file my annual return with my home state of California. But nobody does that.

The Washington Post has an interesting article about how even some Democratic governors are resisting the Medicaid expansion that is part of ObamaCare:

At least seven Democratic governors have been noncommittal about their willingness to go along with expanding their states' Medicaid programs, the chief means by which the law would extend coverage to millions of Americans with incomes below or near the poverty line.

"Unlike the federal government, Montana can't just print money," Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) said in a statement Wednesday. "We have a budget surplus, and we're going to keep it that way."

These governors have more latitude to say no because of the seven-to-two Supreme Court decision ruling unconstitutional the penalty for refusing to participate in the expansion.

University of Chicago professor John Cochrane has a Bloomberg View piece about health care:

Health care is a complex service, in which each person's needs are blurry, and the line between "need" and "want" blurrier still. Imagine if the government decreed that law firms, car-repair shops, or home contractors had to charge everyone the same price, and couldn't turn anyone away. "House fix," for example, would be $1,000 per year, no matter how large the house or what shape it's in. Why do we think this will work for medical services?

USA Today has coverage of congressmen outraged at the news that the U.S. Olympic Team's uniforms for the opening ceremonies of the Summer Games, designed by the American company Ralph Lauren, were manufactured in China:

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the USOC should be "ashamed" that the blue blazers, white pants and berets that American athletes will wear are manufactured in China.... "They should take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile and burn them," Reid said.

..."You'd think they'd know better," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said of the USOC.

Added Sen. Bernie Sanders [a socialist from Vermont]: "... At a time when millions of Americans are unemployed, there is no reason why U.S. Olympic uniforms are not being manufactured in the U.S."

Leave it to an Olympic athlete to understand the issue better than the politicians:

Some people are starting to notice that the prospect of huge tax increases approaching at the start of 2013 is harming the economy.

The New York Times has a serviceable account on the business page under the headline "Fear of Year-End Fiscal Stalemate May Be Having Effect Now." It begins, "With the economy having slowed in recent weeks, business leaders and policy makers are growing concerned that the tax increases and government spending cuts set to take effect at year's end have already begun to cause companies to hold back on hiring and investments."

Conrad Black has a column that, among other things, notes that President Obama is inaccurate when he blames America's economic weakness on Europe:

That is the same recovery that he could not produce overnight, and now cannot produce because of the shambles in Europe, which falls on America because Europe is "our greatest trading partner." This is more diaphanous rubbish than most such apologia: Foreign trade takes less than 15 percent of American production; Europe, even when taken as a whole, is only the fifth trading partner (after Canada, China, Mexico, and Japan); Europe generally is not in worse condition than the U.S. (Germany especially is functioning much better); and concerns about the 17-nation euro have largely driven the investment of $900 billion by Europeans in the United States since 2008, almost twice the previous traditional rate.

"The government spent $5 billion on a camouflage design that actually made its soldiers more visible — and then took eight years to correct the problem," the Daily reports.

The Army seems to have been trying to keep up with the Marines, who, according to the article, went to Home Depot and picked out a uniform color that was then being sold as a paint by Ralph Lauren.

The Boston Globe asked Senator Scott Brown and challenger Elizabeth Warren for their ideas on closing the federal budget deficit. The newspaper reports:

Warren finds the bulk of her deficit reduction — $941 billion – by letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those earning $250,000 a year and by raising estate taxes to their 2009 levels. She would also collect about $46 billion in new taxes by imposing the Buffett Rule.

That is $987,000,000,000 in tax increases. If she can get elected senator in Massachusetts on a campaign promise of a trillion dollar tax increase, then Massachusetts voters are even more left wing than I think they are. And remember, once they get into office, politicians almost always raise taxes by more than what they say they will during the campaign, so if Professor Warren is willing to say during the campaign that she wants to raise taxes by a trillion dollars, imagine what she would do if she actually gets elected.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running a Web-based campaign: "Fill this out to get a FREE Sticker!"

The Web page makes it look like if you give them your name and address and email, you get a free "I [heart] ObamaCare" bumper sticker.

I filled out the form, not because I [heart] ObamaCare but because I thought the sticker would make a nice addition to the Ron Paul for President and Romney for President bumper stickers decorating the bookshelves here at FutureOfCapitalism world headquarters, and because sometime I can find things to write about in the political mail generated by filling out such forms.

Here's the catch: Filling out the form for a "free" sticker generates a "continue" page that slots the free-sticker recipient in for a $25 contribution to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. That page, in turn, has a "finish" button that makes it look like the donation is step two of the "free" sticker application process.