Why Hello There
Posted in Economic Illiteracy on Apr 6th, 2022
Category Archive for 'Economic Illiteracy'
In This House We Believe …
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Methodology on Aug 3rd, 2021
Is a pretty sure sign of confusion. Here, in reference to the “Science is Real” portion of those signs, is Richard Feynman: Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says […]
Doing the Work
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Price Controls, Racism and Anti-racism on Jan 20th, 2021
If (when) Biden’s $15 national minimum wage causes disparate unemployment outcomes of black teens vs white teens, will we strike it down as racist policy? Remember, Kendi tells us that a policy is either racist or anti-racist. We would hope that we distinguish results from intent. Doing the empirical work here is the bread-and-butter of […]
Saving the Planet One Solar Powered Non-Antiracist Trash Can at a Time
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Environment, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jan 13th, 2021
Solar powered trash cans do not pass the smell test. It is claimed that by installing solar panels on a bulky trash can that landfill space is saved and that maybe carbon emissions are reduced. Of course, the places that purchase and use these trash cans seem to not actually measure whether these trash cans […]
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All
Posted in Economic Illiteracy on Dec 17th, 2020
They Believe Their Own Malarkey
Posted in Central Planning, Economic Illiteracy, ethical foundations, Government Thuggery, Inequality, Socialism on Dec 12th, 2020
I am just finishing up the absolutely gut-wrenching book from Frank Dikotter, Mao’s Great Famine. Words cannot do it justice. Just as the Hiroshima story and the Auschwitz story and the slavery story must be told and retold and taught to our children, it would be unconscionable for all of us not to be very well […]
Desacrilize Woke Fundamentalism
Posted in Economic Illiteracy on Nov 29th, 2020
Read the entire thing: The way forward must therefore involve bolstering an emotionally compelling narrative of freedom which foregrounds the threats emanating from a politics of psychic redistribution. Government has an important role to play here, balancing the teaching of minoritarian narratives of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Holocaust with an equivalent appreciation of the […]
The Thanksgiving Gift
Posted in Economic Illiteracy on Nov 28th, 2019
Today I reprint a slightly edited piece I put together several years ago. I’d change a lot of it, from the content to the tone, if I were to do it over – but one must live with one’s younger self. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Four centuries after the celebration of the first Thanksgiving, there […]
And Then They Came for the Plastic Bags …
Posted in Caring, Central Planning, Disingenuous, Economic Illiteracy, Environment, Government Gone Wild on Mar 30th, 2019
For years I have waffled back and forth between being way too reactionary and concerned about the insane ideas that are put forth, or way too lax in trying to stay out of the news. For my own mental health and for what I thought would help contribute to good debate, I have chosen to […]
Coase, on Coase
Posted in Disingenuous, Economic Illiteracy, Property Rights on Oct 27th, 2018
“This is, of course, a very unrealistic assumption … these operations are often extremely costly … to prevent many transactions.” That was him referring to the oft-straw man argument by opponents of Coasean insights about “transactions costs being zero.” Coase obviously knew that. And he obviously was making a different point. The Coase Theorem as […]