Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Property Rights on Oct 5th, 2009
I am rereading Hernando DeSoto’s Mystery of Capital to prepare for a few lectures on property rights I do in my Environmental class. Here is one of my favorite thoughts: The lack of legal property thus explains why citizens in developing and former communist nations cannot make profitable contracts with strangers, cannot get credit, insurance, […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy on Oct 5th, 2009
Destruction is not productive. Well, not unless sodium silicate can be poured all over Washington, DC and every state capital. If that’s true, heaven help the other programs. Last week U.S. automakers reported that new car sales for September, the first month since the clunker program expired, sank by 25% from a year earlier. Sales […]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on Oct 5th, 2009
Our registrar has a 1000 character limit on our economics course description for the catalog. I edited what our department had to read something like: Individuals act with purpose. In a world where there is not enough “stuff” to go around, individuals face tradeoffs. We model how individuals make economic choices: how much to work, […]
