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 Institutions on Jan 27th, 2012
My former governor Deval Patrick, in comments in response to Bruins’ goalie Tim Thomas’ refusal to see President Obama, says that “”It just feels like we are losing in this country basic courtesy and grace.” Gee, how to respond to this … I think if Mr. Patrick revisited our history he might be astonished at [...]
Posted in Institutions, incentives on Jan 14th, 2012
I just learned that the large blue books that I use to give essay examinations in cost $1.00 each! They’re 12 pages (6 sheets) of lined 8.5″ by 11″ paper. If you asked me what I thought they cost I probably would have said 10 cents each. I use somewhere between 300 and 500 of [...]
Posted in Education, Environment, Institutions on Dec 26th, 2011
If only it was $11,500 we were talking about. At the same time as our university installed the Solar-Dok, it broke ground on a new student dormitory. This time the stakes are a little bit higher – the dorm is slated to cost $17 million. How is this relevant, don’t we need to build dorms to [...]
Posted in Extended Order, Institutions, growth on Nov 28th, 2011
Today we begin a periodic series that will attempt to capture, via the numbers, exactly what has happened to the size and scope of government since the Great Society. People of all stripes have lovely narratives about “climates” of regulation or deregulation, point to increases or decreases in tax rates, point to the composition of [...]
Posted in Education, Employment, Institutions on Nov 7th, 2011
Both from the proprietors at Marginal Revolution: 1. Here is Alex Tabarrok: “What astounds me is not that someone could amass $35,000 in student loans pursuing a dream of puppetry, everyone has their dreams and I do not fault Joe for his. What astounds me is that Richard Kim, the executive editor of The Nation [...]
Posted in Education, Environment, Institutions, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Nov 2nd, 2011
I’ll keep this short, since merely raising eyebrows about such things has consequences beyond having oneself removed from polite company. As you all no doubt know, universities across the nation are enraptured with “sustainamania” – which is my term for campuses playing “keeping up with the Jones’” when it comes down to efforts to appear [...]
Posted in Institutions, Politics on Oct 22nd, 2011
Casual readers might think I am a plain ‘ol Republican, and I can see why you might think so. But if you had to ask me what the top three egregious acts of our current political system are, at least one of them is wholly supported and perpetuated by the right – and that is [...]
Posted in Institutions on Sep 29th, 2011
From Radley Balko, Illinois man put in prison for filming a cop pull him over. Via Owen O., South Korean tax and fine bounty hunters
Posted in Environment, Institutions, Politics, Special Privilege on Jul 27th, 2011
But will the progressives and greenies also support it? In the 2008 bank bailout bill there was a rider tucked into it to support a plug-in hybrid vehicle tax credit. Now I am sure all of my readers are keenly aware of how this prescient act of government saved the financial sector and turned the [...]
Posted in Government Thuggery, Institutions, Paternalism on Jul 26th, 2011
Just finished up Tim Harford’s terrific book, Adapt (Hayekians would especially like its discussion of complexity and knowledge). Here is a nice quote: I recently visited the UK Treasury to discover that officials were waxing lyrical about nudging through “choice editing.” When you say, “choice editing,” I asked, does that mean, “banning things?” The sheepish [...]
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