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 Standards of Living on Jun 19th, 2008
I love drinking Peach Snapple, not least of all because of the neat factoids imprinted on the inside of the caps. When the ballpoint pen was first mass-introduced at Gimbels in 1945 (more on Gimbels in an upcoming post), it sold for a whopping $12.50. That was in 1945 dollars, or the equivalent of $150.43 […]
Posted in Standards of Living on May 19th, 2008
If you ain’t making it, you can’t consume it. Productivity growth is the brass ring for any economy concerned with increasing its living standards (there I go anthropomorphizing again). When you can make more things with the same number of people, or make the same amount using fewer people, every individual’s command over resources improves.
Posted in Fun Facts, Standards of Living on Apr 10th, 2008
I found out that among Americans that live in Money Magazine’s “100 Best Places to Live”, the annual average amount spent on vacations was $8,250. That is roughly 10% of median (pre-tax) income (about $90,000). Assuming that the tax taking authorities avail themselves of 33% of income on average, that means that families in these […]
Posted in Politics, Standards of Living, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Apr 7th, 2008
A recent news story (I link to it at the very end of this post) brings to mind two Journey songs (yes, I was/is a Journey fan), “Anyway you want it,” and “Don’t Stop Believing”. Imagine the reaction if I got on the news today and exclaimed,
Posted in Standards of Living on Mar 27th, 2008
In 1973, George Steinbrenner and a group of investors bought the New York Yankees for $10 million. Mr. Steinbrenner’s contribution to obtain a majority interest was $800,000.
In 2009, when the New York Yankees open their new ballpark in the Bronx, a season ticket package for four seats in the first five to eight rows behind […]
Posted in Price System, Standards of Living on Feb 26th, 2008
My brief take in the Christian Science Monitor:
Yet despite the recent rise in food prices, over a longer period of time, spending on food as a percentage of household income has been declining, points out Michael Rizzo, senior economist at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) in Great Barrington, Mass. For example, in 1970, […]
Posted in Environment, Public Choice, Regulation, Standards of Living on Jun 25th, 2007
… and hits one to the warning track.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, the typically excellent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Surowiecki has a nice review of Indur Goklany’s new book on the Improving State of the World. However, he slips into all too easy dogmatic territory with this critique:
The environmental transition hypothesis is the most striking example of this view, since it […]
Posted in Socialism, Standards of Living on Jun 20th, 2007
There is a reason this has been relegated to pop-culture status.
If that is not enough to appreciate just how far our living standards have advanced, much less the devastation that socialism lays on societies, try living like people did in 1883 Montana. Many of us romanticize the simplicity of that kind of a life from the […]
Posted in Standards of Living on May 14th, 2007
Last Thursday night I finished work at 6:00pm after a day in my air conditioned office. My wife and I enjoyed a barbecued chicken which cost roughly $5.00. After eating, I took two advil to help my headache. After which, I watched live a hockey game being played 400 miles away while I packed my […]
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