The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Inequality on Feb 17th, 2009
Below is a chart that shows how family income has grown over time for families at different levels of initial income. For the sake of this post, let’s ignore measurement issues and whether or not these data accurately capture what is happening to the income of a particular person over time. What you see below [...]
Posted in Corporatism on Feb 17th, 2009
Apparently, somewhere between 20 and 22. In 1987, Ronald Reagan famously called for President Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” When it finally happened in 1989, Westerners were treated to the sites of some of the major achievements of the industrial policies of the Politburu. This is my favorite example. The Trabant was the car [...]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on Feb 16th, 2009
Given that airplanes have been in the news lately, these questions have been on my mind: Why are there no clocks on airplanes, but they are all over the airport? They don’t let me take my shaving kit on the plane, or a full tube of toothpaste for that matter. Yet they handed me a [...]
Posted in Corporatism on Feb 14th, 2009
Give every American a gift certificate each week for a free pan of it.
Posted in Classical Liberalism on Feb 13th, 2009
Abraham Lincoln is justly celebrated as the Great Emancipator. The Civil War freed nearly 4 million African-Americans from human bondage. It thereby fulfilled the promise of the American Revolution, eradicating a major coercive blight on the country. But unfortunately, Lincoln did almost as much to repudiate as to reaffirm the radical principles of the Declaration [...]
Posted in Politics on Feb 13th, 2009
A $1 Trillion “Solution” By Two Frustrated, Hard Working, Taxpaying Brothers from NY Based on data from the Congressional Budget Office, the Sources of $2.5 trillion of Federal Tax Revenue for Fiscal Year 2007 were as follows (in billions): Individual Income Tax $ 1,164 Corporate Income Tax $ 370 Payroll Taxes $ 870 Excise Taxes [...]
Posted in Macroeconomics on Feb 12th, 2009
Commercial & Industrial Loans at All Commercial Banks (through December, logged) Bank Credit (revolving and non-revolving) of All Commercial Banks (last week, logged) “TED Spread = LIBOR Rate – US Treasury Rate” (3 month) Today = 1.22% – 0.32% (as of Monday) = 0.9% At peak of “crisis” it was 3%. Note that the “TED” [...]
Posted in Macroeconomics on Feb 11th, 2009
By the way, although WWII raised U.S. real GDP a lot, this response is not typical for the OECD. If fact, WWII is the biggest economic disaster of the 20th century, out-stripping the Great Depression. This is, of course, because many countries suffered greatly from physical destruction and loss of life (the U.K. not nearly [...]
Posted in Classical Liberalism on Feb 11th, 2009
So now we have the Geithner rescue plan (some of this overlaps with Congressional Bailout #1, and is for an open-ended amount, perhaps in the trillions), we have the Federal stimulus plan (apx $800B), we had the Congressional bailout plan in the fall ($700 billion), we had the Fed rescue of Bear Stearns ($30 billion), [...]
Posted in You Can't Have it Both Ways on Feb 10th, 2009
When asked during his news conference what he thought about the A-Rod steroid revelation, President Obama said something to the effect that, “I hope this is a lesson for all of the kids out there … that there are no shortcuts, no easy ways out … and that if you do that your reputation will [...]
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