Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Education, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Aug 16th, 2017
In discussing kidney donations, I’ve encountered the argument that offering compensation to donors would be problematic, not just morally, but because it may reduce incentives to donate due to intrinsic motivation declining with payment. That’s a fine argument, and we’ve seen monetary incentives backfire for sure especially when we try to apply it to non-traditional […]
Posted in Methodology, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Aug 15th, 2017
My faith in humanity is being regularly rocked, but perhaps that is just too much of an overreaction to current events. But for the sake of intellectual consistency, will those folks delighting in the tarring of the entire classical liberal program through dark and nefarious long arcs of the work of James Buchanan now be […]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Aug 9th, 2017
A particularly thorny philosophical problem for limited government classical liberal types is that while they want to see voluntary exchanges and private property governing as many human interactions as is “reasonable”, they typically leave it to the state to defend property rights and handle contracting disputes and third party spillovers. You can see the problem […]
Posted in Environment, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jul 24th, 2017
Upon talking to many farmers and examining the literature, it is pretty clear that one producer advantage of using “organic” production methods to grow crops is that it allows sellers to price discriminate and charge higher prices for these products than more conventionally produced fruits, grains and vegetables. Indeed, a recent meta-study concluded that the […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Environment, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., You Can't Have it Both Ways on Feb 15th, 2017
A very misunderstood idea is that “organic” foods are grown without pesticides. This is patently untrue. Organic foods are grown with “approved” pesticides – generally those that have a biological origin. Of course, this does not mean that these pesticides are worse, or better, than “unnaturally” produced chemical pesticides (aren’t biological pesticides also chemicals? Oh, […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Education, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., Price Controls, Special Privilege, Voluntary Society, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Feb 8th, 2017
Quite literally almost every single person involved in college athletics/kidney donations gets paid except the very people who are generating the lion’s share of value in the first place. Tell me an argument in favor of banning kidney sales and then insert “college athlete” and see how that sounds. Of course, neither the athlete nor […]
Posted in Central Planning, Disingenuous, Education, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., You Can't Have it Both Ways on Feb 8th, 2017
It is well understood that the incidence of defaults on college debt is higher on people with smaller loans outstanding. These are marginally attached students to begin with. Remember that 40% of students who start college do not finish. Yet, contrast this with where the “noise” is coming from on “free college” and the “college loan crisis.” […]
Posted in Environment, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Feb 5th, 2017
It seems to me that anti-GMO activists are open and proud discriminators on the basis of sex. Transgenic breeding techniques are targeted methods of introducing genes with particularly desirable characteristics into a plant or animal species. These very same characteristics have been for thousands of years, and can currently be, bred traditionally into plant and […]
Posted in Environment, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jan 22nd, 2017
So, reusable shopping bags are becoming even costlier than I argued earlier: My local supermarket, which is nationally recognized as being both great at customer service and also great at appearing green to its customers, has finally recognized that customers who use reusable shopping bags impose costs on other people in line by making the […]
Posted in Dynamism - Not, Financial Institutions, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., You Can't Have it Both Ways on Dec 7th, 2016
I’ve had a number of students ask me for letters of recommendation to help them secure their summer internships. Almost all of these internships are unpaid. Three quick observations: (1) It seems to be that high-end jobs have completely outsourced basic training to their future employees instead of it being done by them. You should see […]
