The Unbroken Window

“Colleges seek help from Congress.”

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After 12 years of public school brainwashing, I suppose I cannot hold it against students for thinking that our political system is oh so special. Arnold Kling sheds some light on how our Corporatist System currently works: What he seems to want is a successful political party that is true to an ideology that opposes [...]

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This passage made it into the section in a leading environmental text on the implementation of Benefit-Cost analysis: Nevertheless, given the uncertainty illustrated in the graph … it is clear that the choice between A and B could not be made on benefit-cost grounds (ed: expected net benefits of program A are slightly larger than [...]

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Since people in the United States seem to think that there is such a thing as “we” and given that “we” seem to all want a hefty dose of socialism now, I thought it would be polite to spend a week talking about some of the things that government does (when it is not pointing [...]

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There are no good environmental economics textbooks on the market. Not only do most not even mention the name of Julian Simon, or discuss the political economy of regulation for more than a paragraph, but they are littered with this sort of thing: Widespread fears of job loss from environmental protection, however, need to be [...]

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The annualized cost of controlling pollution in America in 1972 was $48.5 billion in 2008 dollars (or 0.9% of GDP). The annualized cost of controlling pollution in America in 2005 was $291.6 billion (or 2.8% of GDP).

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This time from Arnold Kling: Let me make some remarks that are sufficiently flip to assure Tyler that I should never be president. Firms are laying off workers that they probably should have laid off months ago, and they should not hesitate to do so. It is ok for consumers to cut back on their [...]

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Pay attention to the government’s budget constraint. The nation faces a long-term imbalance between government spending and tax revenue. The fundamental problem is that the federal government has promised the elderly more benefits than the tax system can support. This fiscal imbalance will become acute as more baby boomers retire and start collecting Social Security [...]

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From: owner-officemax@mail.rochester.edu [mailto:owner-officemax@mail.rochester.edu] On Behalf Of Doe, Jane Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 12:25 PM To: officemax@mail.rochester.edu Subject: Oser Press CalendarsThe 2009 calendars are ready to order… Jane Doe University of Rochester Employee (585) 275-abcd Jane_Doe@URMC.Rochester.edu Think Green! Before printing this e-mail ask the question, is it necessary? I used to just ignore these … [...]

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Now 401(k) savings are simply tax shelters for the wealthy. Here’s more. Did I remind my dear readers that if the federal government keeps its promises to future Medicare and Social Security recipients, our national debt would balloon from the current $10 trillion to $50 trillion or even more? The first follows from the second.

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