The Unbroken Window

My brother had to tell me why! He’s much better looking than I am!

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Here is some shameless self-promotion. I was invited to be on a panel at the Alexander Hamilton Institute’s annual conference. The topic this year was property rights. You can hear the audio of the 6 sessions here, where you can find out what I sound like in real life. Also do not miss the video [...]

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The Dow closed at 7949 on the day of the inauguration. Today, as I write this (May 13), the Dow stands at 8282. Phew. Thank goodness.

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What a year 2009 is turning out to be! Who would have thunk you would read stories about pirates, elves and Tea Parties? Here is just a small group of headlines that seem striking in the year 2009. Pirates: “How to Solve the Pirate Problem: Shooting 3 Somali Pirates was a Good Start, Now Let’s [...]

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Now the city of Providence wants to tax college students simply for the sake of being there. You know, to make sure the students contribute to the shared prosperity of the city. I really hope it happens, I really do. This is what most of the students and faculty at higher education institutions advocate for [...]

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Why does the Federal Government (via the IRS) NOT accept its own currency as payment of taxes? I have my own ideas, which I’ll share later. But this seems strange particularly given the views of heterodox monetary economists that argue the only reason a particular thing is money or has value as money is because [...]

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In an excellent interview with the Richmond Fed, George Selgin writes: Secondly, the tendency for banking systems to suffer failures, especially big clusters of failures, depends on the regulatory environment. Had we had nationwide branch banking all along in the United States, that alone would have allowed us to avoid many of the bank failures [...]

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The Government Budget Identity can be written as G = T + delta D + delta B, where G is government spending, T is tax revenues, delta D is the amount of new borrowing done by the government, and delta B is the amount of new “money” created.

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When economists teach welfare analysis, they demonstrate that the “gains from trade” in an economy come as a result of two people transacting that place different values on a good. Typically the transactions are characterized as between a buyer (who might value a pair of sunglasses at $90) and a seller (who might be able [...]

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I don’t often quote Wall Street Journal editorials, but I am so tired of the hypocrisy of out elected officials (and unelected ones too), that is bears repeating:  … Barack and Michelle Obama have opted out of public schools in D.C. — as they also did in Chicago — and chosen a private school for [...]

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