The Unbroken Window

From Al Gore:
But what a burden would be lifted! We would no longer have to worry that our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands. We could instead celebrate the naysayers who had doggedly persisted [...]

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This is a perfect illustration of how government officials think:

Mary Tullius, director of the Division of State Parks and Recreation, doesn’t think so.  She says the state prides itself on giving Utah families affordable destinations like state parks. And if those destinations were made private, the quality would suffer.
“History has told us that whenever you [...]

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The following chart depicts Net Job Changes by Firm Size for the Last Six Years. I broke out firm size by those under 50 employees (small), those from 50 to 499 employees (mid-sized) and those over 500 employees (large). Note that the trends are similar for finer increments of the data.

Macroeconomic Aggregates: Employment Situation by [...]

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Arnold Kling talks about something I am very familiar with:

from Ed Kilgore, of the Progressive Policy Institute.
Certainly, few self-conscious libertarians have much tolerance for racism, but they are encouraging a point of view about “welfare” that has long been catnip to racists. And that’s a problem for liberals. How can an alliance last in a [...]

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Do NOT take financial advice from Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine. Are there economics editors over there? The brief article is talking about how zero inflation is “bad for you.” Ignore the larger economic question about how inflation is bad for you, this article is arguing that from a pure dollars and sense perspective, inflation makes [...]

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Thus said the Lord. Have many people stopped to consider exactly what that phrase means? What is the purpose of running a business? To generate profits for the owners. And we know the best way to do that over the long haul is to treat both your customers and your employees well. Even if the [...]

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Russ Roberts nails it with this parody (or is it a parody?):
The Gallup poll has discovered (HT: Catherine Rampell) that Saturday is the day of the week that consumers spend the most money. In a brilliant policy innovation, President Obama has decreed that from now on, every day of the week will be called Saturday. [...]

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The economic reasoning behind why rules like the minimum wage or living wage laws are not so helpful is irrefutably solid. But no amount of sound economic thinking seems to work for my students, and that certainly also applies to popular notions of the way the world works. In times like those, perhaps it is [...]

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How many times have you heard criticisms of how we in modern society are crass consumers, and that we simply seek to consume more and more and more in an unending quest for status, relative positioning, salvation, or some other reason. Now, I have personal reasons to worry about my own materialism – in retrospect, [...]

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At least at my home institution.
We believe that our scientists will be highly competitive for these research dollars
I’d rather our scientists be competitive … being scientists.
Since May, a total of 116 University of Rochester employees had their salaries paid for, in whole or in part, with ARRA-related funds. Research labs are typically engaged in multiple [...]

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