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, Economics Problems, Market Failures, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Feb 2nd, 2012
I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I am told, “yeah, supply and demand and prices work and all that, but if we allow them to run wild, the environment will inevitably be destroyed.” These arguments are often levied far more vehemently in the presence of classical liberals than in more mainstream [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Environment on Jan 26th, 2012
I was recently pointed toward the following report on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). In the report I found that the authors claim that the amount of Natural Capital on the entire planet is somewhere between $2 trillion and $4 trillion. For a good description of natural capital from a good economist, see [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Economics Problems, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jan 19th, 2012
About twice a year I end up writing a post screaming at people for not understanding what the term adverse selection means as it pertains to the health insurance market. I can almost understand if the popular press gets it wrong (not really, it is the job of real reporters to understand what they are [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy on Jan 18th, 2012
An old acquaintance of mine responds to Annie Leonard (creator of the very bad Story of Stuff). I’m not chiming in on the particulars. It is pretty clear to me that responding second to videos like this, like the Story of Stuff, like Capitalism a Love Story and the dozens and dozens of other hack jobs [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Health Care on Jan 5th, 2012
In one short post Bryan Caplan lays out in 5 minutes what usually takes me an hour to describe to people when they ask, “what do I need to know about the US Health Care system in order to be an informed critic?” It is his obliteration, rightly, of Jonathan Gruber’s missal on government health [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Economics Problems, Environment on Dec 29th, 2011
In the year 2000 there were 8,354 oil and petroleum based product spills in US navigable waters. 5 years later? 4,073. In 2008? 3,633. In 2009? 3,492. How much oil has been spilled? 2000: 1.43 million gallons 2005: 2.36 million gallons 2008: 777,000 gallons 2009: 196,000 gallons While 10x less oil spilled in waters since [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Fun Facts, Health Care on Dec 15th, 2011
In today’s news we learn that American doctors deliver a 24-week old baby that is the size of a soda can. Look up the data on what other countries do at this level. Second, once you adjust for the things that doctors have no control over (the risky behavior and accidents Americans endure), the US [...]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Corporatism, Economic Illiteracy, Economics Problems on Dec 8th, 2011
Diligent readers will know that I frequently bang on the idea that we ought to be humble regarding the state of our knowledge and our ability to act on it. But that does not mean, as Hayek correctly pointed out, that economists cannot say anything, about the world. We are well positioned to make what [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Health Care, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Nov 29th, 2011
It’s been said many times but bears repeating. Expenditures are not costs. How often have you heard the claim, “health care costs in America are out of control?” I hear it a lot, and it is problematic for at least three reasons. Reason #1: What the heck is health care? The forgoing claim treats “health [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Health Care on Nov 26th, 2011
Did you know that food expenditures for an average family in the US are lower today (as a share of income) than at any point in American history? Did you know that clothing and exercise equipment costs are lower today than they have been in the last three decades? Did you know that the (marginal) [...]
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