The Unbroken Window

It is likely that the decline of private sector unions has led to additional pressure on the federal government to provide a more state-centered medical system. Why? One defining feature of the old-style union firms was their top-notch health care benefits. Therefore, unions would be natural opponents to government intrusions in the health care sector. [...]

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Whether you believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming. Do you know what the best predictor of whether you believe gun control laws should be relaxed? It’s whether you believe the Fed is being too aggressive at the monetary spigot right now. Now ignore the reason you need to affiliate with a particular political party for the [...]

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I strongly recommend reading Alex Tabarrok’s short e-Book Launching the Innovation Renaissance, which I will blog on shortly. Professor Tabarrok blogs it a little today, here is the entire thing: We like to think of ourselves as an innovation nation but our government is a warfare-welfare state. To build an economy for the 21st century [...]

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OK, so I didn’t watch the SOTU last night, I listened to it in my car. Then I listened to Governor Daniels’ response. I promised not to comment, so I’ll outsource one part that I would have posted on – I almost punched a hole in my car window when I heard it. The second [...]

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First the Obama Administration kills the Keystone pipeline. No need to comment on it here – if environmentalists think that preventing this pipeline from being built has any impact on carbon emissions or pollution, or somehow “saves” the midwestern water reservoirs they are badly mistaken. Now, I just learned that the Obama Justice Department is [...]

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I cannot believe I read this correctly, but it appears that the federal government is going to stop producing the Statistical Abstract of the United States. Let me remind readers that data collection and presentation is one of the most effective aspects of your federal government. Furthermore, the costs of doing this are miniscule and [...]

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GUEST POST: The following article is authored by current University of Rochester Senior Alex Armlovich. From Bloomberg Businessweek …Eizenstat and his fellow negotiators faced a barrage of lobbying from U.S. companies and trade groups that wanted specific language written into the agreements to protect their products or give them an edge over their rivals. The [...]

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Remember that we spent nearly $800 billion to arguably get something ranging between $0 and $1 trillion of additional economic stimulus? Remember that even under the most optimistic of cases, this stimulus happened by raising taxes on Americans (in the future of course). Remember that even under the most optimistic of cases, this stimulus is [...]

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$100 at even odds. President Obama will win reelection next year. Is it bothersome to anyone who brutal the Republican field is at this time? I’d also put out there that Obama is a far stronger President than he is being given “credit” for.  I’d probably stiffen the bet and agree that he will win [...]

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Another honest mistake I am sure. Some background from the original “hide the decline” from Steve McIntyre here Despite relatively little centennial variability, Briffa’s reconstruction had a noticeable decline in the late 20th century, despite warmer temperatures. In these early articles [e.g. Briffa 1998], the decline was not hidden. For most analysts, the seemingly unavoidable question [...]

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