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 Corporatism, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Oct 22nd, 2009
Most teachers not only take government money, they rely solely on government money for their livelihoods. And there are a good portion of teachers who look out for “short-term” gains on a quarter by quarter basis rather than looking out for the long-term interests of their schools and their students. Really. Think back to your [...]
Posted in Flotsam and Jetsam on Oct 22nd, 2009
HT from one of my students, Chad H. In class, Rizzo asked us to compare the amount of deaths due to the accident at Chernobyl and the amount of deaths inflicted by Communist rule in the USSR. He then asked why there is such a difference in the way we react to each. The amount [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 21st, 2009
Why don’t airlines generally charge less for “middle” seats than for aisle and window seats?
Posted in Economics Problems on Oct 21st, 2009
If requiring workers to be paid $7.25 per hour is a good idea, I would like to see a ban on volunteer work. How can proponents of the minimum wage argue with a straight face that it is OK to work for “free?” I bet any answer they give me will undermine the case they [...]
Posted in Health Care on Oct 20th, 2009
It’s heart healthy! And no, I will not be eating it. I’d love to see a documentary on how Frankenstein gets animated. Here is a yummy sampling (I just random number searched a page and ended up on 222): 12 ‘‘(b) AMOUNT OF TAX.— 13 ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—The tax determined under 14 this subsection with [...]
Posted in Politics on Oct 20th, 2009
Is also shared by a good portion of the economics profession. Here is what I find frightening: I try to identify problems and then identify solutions to them,” he said, “to find the type of scientific method” that can answer the question. Maybe I shouldn’t be too hard. But there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. [...]
There are now 637,000 public employees in Michigan compared to fewer than 500,000 workers left in manufacturing. The rest is worth reading. Progressive heaven!
Posted in You Can't Have it Both Ways on Oct 20th, 2009
Living in a society that respects the rule of law makes life much easier to live. The reason for this is that by living according to a fixed and unchanging and non-influenced set of rules, we substantially reduce the “transactions costs” of living (our economic lives in particular). For example, without rules, we would have [...]
Posted in Market Failures on Oct 19th, 2009
A kind reader tells me he likes to visit the site regularly. But he is being too kind. It is only because of the foolishness of the folks around us that this site is even possible (I’m not creative enough). I actually think someone out there can take that observation as a justification for … [...]
Posted in Corporatism, Economic Illiteracy on Oct 19th, 2009
At least at my home institution. We believe that our scientists will be highly competitive for these research dollars I’d rather our scientists be competitive … being scientists. Since May, a total of 116 University of Rochester employees had their salaries paid for, in whole or in part, with ARRA-related funds. Research labs are typically [...]
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/t24_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)