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 Taxation on Sep 23rd, 2009
As much as I hate being taxed to death, you should recognize that reporting percentages like this is highly misleading. I have a house valued at $180,000 and I pay $6000 per year in property taxes. That is still an enormous amount of money. However, from the standpoint of my residential location decisions, it’s the [...]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Economic Illiteracy on Sep 23rd, 2009
Oh yeah, I can’t – you have guns pointed at me. In what might qualify as the dumbest piece ever published, this writer criticizes folks for arguing that health reform is like socialism. Actually, he is nominally correct. It is not socialism, but some god-awful version of Progressive Corporatism on ‘roids – so it is [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Economics Problems, Environment on Sep 23rd, 2009
I wonder why I remain startled when I have conversations like the following: Student: Professor Rizzo, can you show me an example of how the “economic way of thinking” is different, and will help me be a better citizen Professor: Sure. Take the Endgangered Species Act. This was an act of Congress intended to do [...]
Posted in Money on Sep 22nd, 2009
Only by plundering the productive parts of society. Of course the FDIC is in trouble. The problem is that banks who have sufficient capital and invested prudently and thereby have not put their depositors at risk are being asked to take care of the banks that were not so prudent. Where does that leave incentives [...]
Posted in Environment on Sep 22nd, 2009
Lately I have taken an interest in understanding exactly what it is that the climate scientists are telling us we need to do to stop the globe from warming any more than is already going to happen from our past emissions. The climate models seem to indicate that “we” need to reduce our CO2 emissions [...]
Posted in Health Care on Sep 21st, 2009
So, I’ve been feeling a bad cold/flu coming on for days. I don’t mind teaching with this condition so long as I can take enough Tylenol and Sudafed. However, with the onset of swine flu (I have several students with it) I wanted to make sure today that I did not have that particular virus [...]
Posted in Economics Problems on Sep 21st, 2009
The “heterodox” department of economics at Notre Dame is being disbanded. When I went to their site to learn more about them, I was absolutely thrilled to see this as a goal of the department: Interested in devising effective policies. Really! Congratulations. And here I thought that academics and policymakers had as a goal to [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Economics Problems on Sep 21st, 2009
Maybe I am inspired by the new series I wish to conduct on anti-capitalism. This will be the first in a series of posts on revealing myths about myths. In an article in Nature, in 1998, Economists Don Fullerton and Robert Stavins ignite one of the most combustible straw men in all of economics – [...]
Posted in Government Gone Wild on Sep 20th, 2009
They would get an F (actually, we at Rochester are too polite for that, we actually give out “E’s” instead of Fs. Does teaching the laws of economics make me a racist, gay-bashing assassin? Here are just a few samples: I absolutely reject that notion Well, now that is awfully scientific. When someone questions you, [...]
Posted in You Can't Have it Both Ways on Sep 20th, 2009
How come no one is running around the country worrying about our dependence on foreign coffee?
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