Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Disingenuous, Dynamism - Not, Economic Illiteracy, Government Gone Wild, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., Taxation on Dec 11th, 2017
As you ponder the inane debates about tax “reform” (i.e. deck chairs and symbolism), suppose you take the work of Martin Feldstein seriously. He has previously estimated that the dead weight loss in an economy due to taxation would be up to 30% of the size of the tax take. Now, I suspect the direct […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Government Gone Wild, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Dec 7th, 2017
I will preface this again by arguing that universities, when they are not functioning like kindergartens, are still a shining example of US excellence, sources of research and learning and hopefully positive spillovers, and we probably want to not destroy that. That said, redistributing priorities within many universities is probably in order and this tax […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Economics Problems on Nov 15th, 2017
An excellent former student of mine writes of the following Noah Smith piece: Noah Smith making a strong bid as the leading champion of the intelligent center-left, I have a very hard time with this. Sure, the point of the article is that the term “neoliberalism” gets unfairly tossed around too much and that “markets […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Economic Illiteracy on Nov 13th, 2017
And soon we’ll be drafting a statement opposing minimum wage hikes, honerous employment legislation, the Estate Tax, and higher income taxes on exactly the same grounds: http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/proposed-tax-bills-increase-cost-college-taxes-private-universities/ … #Meliocre
Posted in Disingenuous, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., Innovation, Knowledge, Special Privilege on Nov 7th, 2017
So, it turns out that this is what is being taught to students about markets outside of our economics classes: I suppose then that when I discuss “single-payer” health care (I don’t actually talk about it, but if I did …), I should hand this printout to students with the title, “Crazy Ideas” … the […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Food and Ag on Oct 28th, 2017
That’s terrific. I wonder if they do the following: “Whenever possible, we purchase local desks and textbooks.” Or how about the following: “Whenever possible, our graduates purchase local higher education!” Indeed, it would be odd to celebrate all of our kids making their way to Harvard, Berkeley, Michigan and such, wouldn’t it, if we truly […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Environment on Oct 24th, 2017
Perhaps ironic that on a lecture on “Academic and Intellectual Freedom” we get the following: Throughout his lecture, Mann dissected the ways in which climate change is often portrayed as a debatable phenomenon. For instance, when climate change is a news show topic, producers will host a scientist alongside a “climate change contrarian,” even though a […]
Posted in Central Planning, Disingenuous on Oct 17th, 2017
It would be lovely if, when we passed certain rules and regulations, we had procedures in place to review their performance and effectiveness. Today, we sit at the halfway point between the issuance of new CAFE standards as part of the 2009 “Stimulus” package, and the year 2025, the target date for new vehicle fuel […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Environment, Tribalism on Oct 4th, 2017
Global warming (or climate change or whatever I am supposed to call it) is real. Doubling of CO2 concentrations should increase temperatures by 1 degree C absent feedback. The “expert” consensus on the ECS is something between 1.5C and 4.5C, but really, it is hard to nail down a precise answer. CO2 concentrations have increased […]
Posted in Disingenuous, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., Taxation, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Sep 21st, 2017
Were I to run for a serious elected office, among my policy positions would include: (1) Eliminate all favorable employer tax treatments for health insurance. In other words, raise the taxes employees and employers pay on the income they pay their workers. The obvious reason to do this, and even the hated GWB proposed it […]
