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 Religion on Apr 19th, 2012
I guess by asking questions about how serious the feedback loops are in climate and whether that part of the science is settled, or even better raising questions about cost-effective ways to deal with the problems a warmer planet may create, I now am told that I deserve to have my house burned down. We [...]
Posted in Religion on Apr 15th, 2012
Did you ever go to Catholic Mass? If so, you would know that there are times when the priest says something, and you instinctively respond with a hymn, prayer, or some other saying. It’s in our blood. We just say it. The same goes for when we listen to mass. We know every word the [...]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Government Gone Wild, Religion on Apr 4th, 2012
Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution gets a lot of attention in debates today, and rightly so. It lays out specifically the things that Congress has the power to do (such as levy taxes). Much of the modern controversy over what government can and cannot do devolves into a food fight about what Article [...]
Posted in Religion, Taxation, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Apr 2nd, 2012
OK, so I exaggerate, but here’s the image: If virtually half of Americans pay no income taxes, then it is impossible for them to “receive the gains” from any income tax reductions. And when we have a progressive tax system, it is virtually impossible for reductions in taxes to be progressive, they have to be [...]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Religion, Socialism on Mar 4th, 2012
I no longer go to Catholic mass, yet I typically spend some time on the weekend reflecting on the Church and what has driven me from it. When I was a young kid, I used to read folks like St. Thomas Aquinas as being staunch defenders of private property who respected the sorts of things [...]
Posted in Development, Religion on Nov 6th, 2011
No particularly deep point here … but I contend that if we took every single dollar of taxation and instead directed it to religious institutions, we’d be a heck of a lot poorer today than otherwise. I used to think precisely the opposite.
Posted in Public Choice, Religion on Aug 22nd, 2011
Growing up Catholic, we did not eat meat on Fridays during Lent, and we tried to not eat it on Fridays during the rest of the year as well. Like many other parts of my catholicism, I was never told why, or if I was told why, I certainly did not remember it. Thanks to [...]
Posted in Education, Religion, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jul 6th, 2011
I can (possibly) understand the concern that if we allow vouchers to proliferate at the K12 education level we would be conflating church and state. The reason of course is that many of the private alternatives that would be chosen by voucher recipients would be religious institutions. Fine. But then I have two questions: (1) [...]
I comment regularly on the impacts of the government controlling 90% of America’s youth. I am a product of Catholic schooling. But this leads me to a puzzle that I really cannot resolve, and I implore my readers for their thoughts. Here goes: I get apoplectic that the government monopolization of K12 education virtually ensures [...]
Posted in Government Gone Wild, Regulation, Religion on Apr 11th, 2011
When people point to a government success (don’t laugh) it usually comes with a call for more government. You might profitably think about the invocation of the “success” of deposit insurance (I disagree) being used to impose similar rules on the modern financial system. However, when government fails I usually see these failures as a [...]
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/t24_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)