Tag Archives: Tesla Motors

Michigan lets its crony capitalism flag fly

Business

Michigan lawmakers are looking out for auto dealers where customers can get a quote for any new vehicles they’d like to buy. Sounds nice, right? Well, it does if you’re a new car dealer who doesn’t like the fact that that upstart auto maker Tesla hasn’t followed the herd when it comes to selling their new cars.

The state’s legislature recently passed a bill that bans direct sales of new cars to customers, requiring a dealer to broker the sale. The bill is awaiting signing by governor Rick Snyder.

From Bloomberg:

The National Automobile Dealers Association, which represents almost 16,000 new-car dealers, favors the franchised-dealer network.

“States are fully within their rights to protect consumers by choosing the way cars are sold and serviced,” Charles Cyrill, a spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement. “Fierce competition between local dealers in any given market drives down prices both in and across brands. While if a factory owned all of its stores, it could set prices and buyers would lose virtually all bargaining power.”

Are states “fully within their rights” to block consumers purchasing a legal product directly rather than going through an approved agent? I’m going to say that they’re not. At all. Sure, there may be no laws that expressly forbid them from doing it (though this seems more a case for the Federal government under the Interstate Commerce Clause), but just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. This is a big old “don’t”. » Read more

Tom Knighton
First, I’d like to take a moment to mention how great it is to be posting something to The Liberty Papers. In 2009, I joined with a friend in a project he had started where we blogged about area politics. I’d blogged a little bit here and there before about whatever random things, but my libertarian streak had never really gotten a chance to fly.

Suddenly, I had a platform. To say it changed my life was…well, a significant understatement. It lead to me getting to know some pretty cool people, many of whom are here at The Liberty Papers. It gave me the opportunity to first write for a local newspaper, and then eventually buy it. While that didn’t necessarily work out, it was yet another example of me being able to write a lot of words in a fairly short amount of time. So, I did like a lot of people and decided to write a book. Bloody Eden came out in August and is available at Amazon (or your favorite book website for that matter).

Now that we’ve gotten the history out of the way, a bit about the politics. First, I’m probably best described as a classical liberal. At least, that’s what every “What kind of libertarian are you?” quiz has told me, and they’re probably right. I’m a constitutional libertarian, for the most part. If the Constitution says they can do it, it doesn’t mean they should, but if the Constitution says they can’t, then they can’t. It just doesn’t get any simpler than that.

I look forward to contributing here at The Liberty Papers.

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