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 Economic Illiteracy, Environment on Dec 31st, 2010
That’s the sound of glass shards from the broken window hitting the mud. Much has been written on Cash for Clunkers so I do not want to reprise all of it here. I just wanted to close the year with a reminder to readers about the message behind the title of this website. The latest [...]
Posted in You Can't Have it Both Ways, labor markets on Dec 30th, 2010
A few e-mails came in last week when I mentioned that my marginal tax rates on my next dollar of earned income were rather high. In doing so, I included nearly all of the 15.3% of the payroll tax as coming out of my wages. Was I right to do this? That is not the [...]
Posted in Environment on Dec 29th, 2010
I have recently done a few posts on recycling and I plan to end the year with a short series on ideas pertaining to “recycling.” These are largely observations of mine based on reading hundreds of papers students have written for me on recycling over the past few years. Let’s start with the simplest of [...]
Posted in Entrepreneurs on Dec 28th, 2010
A commenter on this post asked me to say a bit more about how effective the price signals of profits and losses are in guiding useful entrepreneurial action. Briefly, here is the good question he asks: I wonder about these price signals in the discovery process. I see two distinct situations: where I am copying [...]
Posted in Macroeconomics, labor markets on Dec 27th, 2010
Since the Bureau of Labor Statistic started collecting the data in 2001, the annual average number of jobs that have been “destroyed” in the US economy has been 23.7 million per year or roughly 2 million jobs per month. Now these “jobs” are not the same as employment experiences. Some of the people represented in [...]
Posted in Standards of Living on Dec 25th, 2010
WINTERCOW in 2010: Sorry to be reposting. But again I think the message is worth repeating, especially on this wonderful day. I don’t want you to feel down about it at all. If you would like to see the data from the remaining eleven days, start here. As children around the world open presents on [...]
Posted in Government Gone Wild on Dec 24th, 2010
From Steve Malanga: Some budget trickery betrays pledges made by lawmakers to taxpayers. One common example is “sweeps,” when a state shifts money from accounts dedicated to specific purposes, like highway maintenance, into general accounts where the money can be spent on anything. One honey pot is the tax revenue designated by federal law for [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Economics Problems on Dec 24th, 2010
Sadly, for three years running, not much needs to change. Not much has changed in the intervening time. I suppose I could say something about QE2 and fears of deflation as commodity prices soar. I might say what we learned about the original TARP, which was as much of a bailout of European banks as [...]
Posted in Corporatism on Dec 23rd, 2010
In 1971, the National Association of Letter Carriers (i.e. the Postal Union) secured a court injunction against the Independent Postal Services of America – who had the gall to deliver 2nd, 3rd and 4th class Christmas Cards for 5 cents while the Postal Service was only able to do it for 8 cents. Why did [...]
Posted in Taxation on Dec 22nd, 2010
A few days ago I proposed a tongue-in-cheek “solution” to the health care cost problem: capping doctor pay. In a few weeks we will (hopefully) write a series of posts on the Big Questions: natural law, property rights, and the proper role of the state. Let’s just assume that someone else owns your property because [...]
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