My daughter’s best friend recently announced she was moving to San Diego this summer. Upset, my eleven-teen year-old cried that visits would be infrequent because plane tickets “cost thousands of dollars.” Once we were over the emotional hump, I informed her years ago a few annual plane trips would have been out of the financial question, because the federal government regulated the price of tickets, and more. However, now that many counter-productive regulations have been removed, competition and discount carriers ensure a steady stream of flight options and low-price tickets – in sum, she and her friend will see each other regularly.

This same lesson was taught her as concerns telecommunications. Blessed are we that in the 1960s and 1970s, as Answer.com puts it, MCI “led the charge in introducing competition in the telecommunications industry” and helped bust open the government-granted ATT long distance phone service monopoly. Because many regulatory walls have tumbled down, we now have untold local and long distance phone options to fit every budget plan and lifestyle. Long distance calls are a mere fraction of what they used to be when I was a kid in 1976 and my best friend moved 2.5 hours away; calling him was like buying a luxury item under the government-sanctioned monopoly.

These aren’t “I-had-to-walk-five-miles-to-school” stories. Rather, they are two living, breathing opportunities we can use to educate young people about the benefits of open markets, competition and choice. Young people (and many adults) may not grasp the nuances of supply and demand or elasticity curves, but they can certainly grasp the concept of downloading their favorite song du jour as their personal ring tone and calling their far-away friends at a negligible price to arrange a time to visit, made all the more affordable through economic liberty.