Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Competition, Economic Illiteracy, Market Failures, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Dec 2nd, 2016
DD sends me the following article which suggests that Uber is losing quite a bit of money, is not going to turn profitable, and presumably is the worst thing to ever happen to America. Two quick points, should you care to read through the article. The author argues (and I am not sure I disagree […]
Posted in Corporatism, Disingenuous, Education, If I Really Hated the Poor ... on Dec 2nd, 2016
We’ll dig down into this Current Affairs vituperation of Trump’s choice of Education Secretary in some more detail later (I’m off to class now). But two points in this article I’d like to make quite clearly and simply. The author starts out by trying to understand and articulate (in true Turing Test fashion) what the arguments made […]
Posted in Competition, Economics Problems, Tribalism on Nov 20th, 2016
26.2 + ε
Posted in Behavior, Constitution, incentives, Politics on Nov 15th, 2016
Alex Tabarrok has a post today supporting the idea of term limits. He, like me, seems to support them on the grounds that if you know the opposite party may soon be in office, that may soften your governing stand while in office. I want to believe this is what happens. But in a world […]
Posted in Competition, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Sep 27th, 2016
I once saw a famous actor make a claim about the natural gas industry, This is an industry that is the dirtiest, slimiest, most arrogant and negligent that you can imagine Granted, this was before the rise of Hillary and Donald. And then, you know, we have other technologies and they are better and most […]
Posted in Central Planning, Development, Entrepreneurs, Extended Order, growth, Innovation, Macroeconomics, Market Failures on May 27th, 2016
In revisiting my class discussions on the economics of public goods, I came across a paper from the OECD that incredibly I had never been aware of. One of the major results in the paper is shocking. Now the sample size, as with all cross-country analyses, is small, and there are the usual caveats about […]
Posted in Development, Flotsam and Jetsam on May 15th, 2016
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Special Privilege on Apr 27th, 2016
Perhaps the least appreciated idea in the western world today is the importance of shame. When I get my act together, I hope to begin a series on the topic. In a world populated with opportunism, and in a world where it seems a not insignificant portion of support for government is thinly veiled attempt […]
Posted in Central Planning, Competition, Extended Order on Apr 12th, 2016
This was a really interesting article from Vox about whether we are becoming too reliant on GPS. One point that seemed spot on was that by relying on GPS and not on maps and planning (at least in conjunction with it) people’s navigational senses are dulled. I am sure you have seen other applications of […]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, ethical foundations, Extended Order, Methodology on Apr 4th, 2016
In my readings on political philosophy, even the most hard-core socialists, from the state-ownership clan to the anarcho-syndicalist-socialist clan seem to accede the fact that capitalism is “second best.” In other words, they craft a utopian vision for what a socialist world could look like, but since people are crooked, selfish, etc. then we must […]