Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Fun Facts, Price Controls on Mar 4th, 2021
What that image depicts is what share of an “adequate family of four budget” that a minimum wage earner would make if she worked full-time (52 weeks @ 40 hours). That budget was determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and included what it costs to purchase goods, rents and services, payment of personal taxes, […]
Posted in Education, Government Gone Wild on Feb 15th, 2021
“White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that Biden’s goal is for more than 50% of schools to have “some teaching” in person “at least one day a week” – not necessarily fully reopened – by Day 100 of his presidency.” We are living in a failed state. Have a nice day. My prediction […]
Posted in Family, Government Gone Wild, Government Thuggery on Feb 11th, 2021
World Politics Hitting Close to Home. PLEASE HELP FREE MY FRIEND AND FORMER COLLEAGUE. Bobo is a friend and fellow employee at the institution I worked at before I got to the U of Rochester. He is one of the kindest, hardest working individuals I have ever known. He came to America after being incarcerated […]
Posted in labor markets on Feb 4th, 2021
Arnold Kling hits this one out of the park. Here he is on “creating worthlessness”: The gap between the college-educated and the less-educated is arguably due to differential treatment by government programs and billionaire philanthropists. We create a well-paying job for a college-educated ZMP in the “sustainability office” of a government agency or industry trade […]
Posted in Government Gone Wild, Government Thuggery, Racism and Anti-racism on Jan 31st, 2021
Why Don’t You Know His Name? “Help me!” “Help me!” As cars drive by, fellow officers watch, knee on back. He “settles down” at 11:30. “I’ll drive the ambulance” … “Ha ha ha ha ha” “He said, “you’re gonna kill me” but he tried to kick me” 13:00 “Is he asleep?” then laughing 13:43 they […]
Posted in Central Planning, Government Gone Wild on Jan 29th, 2021
Courtesy of the Morning Consult: In other research via Marginal Revolution: Bureaucratic politics is a politics of privilege. By 1956, the wages of the highest-ranking party and government personnel were set at 36.4 times those of the lowest rank. (By way of comparison, the highest wage in the “corrupt” Nationalist government in1946 was 14.5 times […]
Posted in Central Planning, Environment, Unintended Consequences on Jan 27th, 2021
So, many drink companies have replaced their plastic straws with paper ones. No biggie I guess, I don’t use straws. But for some, the other benefit of a plastic straw seems to have been that it is easier to jam a hard plastic straw through a rigid lid than a floppy paper straw. One of […]
Posted in Methodology on Jan 26th, 2021
The purpose of science is not to be “settled” as nothing can be settled – unless you claim to have met the “maker” of the universe. Those of us who claim to be in pursuit of capital “T” truth are also fooling ourselves. Sure, the pursuit of something MORE truthful is surely worthy, but we […]
1937 New Dealers Edition. Seems like FDR was off his rocker. In the midst of these defeats, and the rising unemployment, Roosevelt became more explicit in describing a conspiracy of businessmen trying to undermine his administration. They were still avoiding taxes and refusing to invest in economic development. Morgenthau received first news of this conspiracy […]
Posted in History on Jan 25th, 2021
Oh, I meant 1937: I was impressed as never before by the utter lack of logic of the man, the scantiness of his precise knowledge of things that he was talking about, by the gross inaccuracies in his statements, by the almost pathological lack of sequence in his discussion, by the complete rectitude that he […]