Monopoly

In the following 4 minute video Milton Friedman answers a question from the audience after a speech in 1978 at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota:

https://youtu.be/tdLBzfFGFQU

Ron Paul published an essay on 10/31/16 with the title "Blame Government, Not Markets for Monopoly".

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2016/october/31/blame-government-not-markets-for-monopoly/

The conclusion to this article is as follows:

Any businesses that charge high prices or offer substandard products will soon face competition from businesses offering consumers lower prices and/or higher quality. Monopolies only exist when government tilts the playing field in favor of well-connected crony capitalists. Therefore those concerned about excessive corporate power should join supporters of the free market in repudiating the regulations, taxes, and subsides that benefit politically-powerful businesses.

Protectionism

Tariffs and trade sanctions are experiencing a resurgence in popularity.  Mark J. Perry has recently published an article in TheAmerican Enterprise Institute blog AEIdeas that examines how this is possible given the stark economic reality of the damage that protectionism causes to the host nation.  The following excerpt from this article describes the damage caused by tariffs:

"It’s a scientifically and mathematically provable fact that all tariffs, at any time and in any country, will harm economic growth, eliminate net jobs, destroy prosperity, and lower the standard of living of the protectionist country because tariffs are guaranteed by the ironclad laws of economics to generate costs to consumers that outweigh the benefits to producers, i.e. tariffs will always impose deadweight losses on the protectionist country..."  

The full article can be viewed at this link:

25 reasons why protectionism is taken seriously when its actually a form of economic suicide