The Unbroken Window

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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We just learned that the post office is losing another $5 billion this year. This is on top of a $10 billion loss and a long history of destroying resources. Among the many problems with the post office (aside from bureaucracy serially allergic to entrepreneurship and serving customers) is that it has way over-capitalized itself [...]

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Kevin Drum drums up an image that corporate taxes are low in America.  Indeed he is right about that. But what he is NOT right about is whether corporate tax rates are high in America. Here he is: But whatever we do, don’t ever fall for the complaint that corporate tax rates in the U.S. [...]

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In this article we are told the following: Those who create costs pay for them — that simple idea is the logic behind the Clean Air Act and most other environmental regulations If that is the simple logic behind the Clean Air Act, then the act should be torn up and tossed into the garbage. [...]

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A certain kind of armchair theorizing about economics resembles some old armchair theorizing about the laws of physics. When one sees a balloon floating up in the air today, it is not often that we gaze intently at it, wrinkle our brow, then pause and then loudly and excitedly proclaim: “Aha! I’ve just found something [...]

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In an OpEd in tomorrow’s WSJ, Democratic Senate Candidate Jeff Greene tells us we should listen to the message of OWS folks. I may agree with him, but not when he pulls out the boilerplate arguments: …  These policies, and deregulation, created the environment for widespread defaults as well as predatory lending, exotic mortgage derivatives, [...]

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After all, they promote the ideological fantasy that unicorns and other neat creatures do not exist.  I very much look forward to the movement turning its attention to the public health classes, education classes, anthro/sociology classes, and the like. Gosh Mr. Mankiw, don’t you know better than to not offer “two-sides” to the story that [...]

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I came across an old letter, addressed to PhD Economists, from the Union of Concerned Scientists. It was a letter pushing for an expansion in US CAFE standards (i.e. mandating better fuel mileage in the new vehicle fleet). Among the many claims it makes includes: Our continued dependence on oil puts our economy at risk [...]

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It just occurred to me that the following two concepts cannot possibly exist side by side: There is a folk belief then when a rich nation trades with a poorer nation, that the income of workers in rich countries is reduced. There is yet another popular folk belief out there: that when a rich nation [...]

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When we teach an intro economics course one of the early lectures includes a discussion (and resolution) of the “water-diamond” paradox. How is it that something so valuable in use, such as water, has such a low exchange value, while something with little value in use, such as diamonds, has such a high exchange value. [...]

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