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 Government Gone Wild, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Apr 1st, 2012
If you have not read Steve Greenhut’s book on America’s public employee crisis, called Plunder!, this is the sort of thing that would be in store for you for a few hundred pages: What does it look like when a city of almost 300,000 flirts with becoming America’s largest ever city to go bankrupt? Welcome [...]
Posted in Taxation, Transportation and Infrastructure, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Mar 27th, 2012
“Infrastructure” is among the most popular goods for which folks think the federal government ought to have a heavy hand in producing. Let’s think a little bit more about this. A few observations that came to mind while driving to work on a totally un-congested highway that runs right through downtown Rochester and connects the [...]
Posted in Macroeconomics, Price System, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Mar 22nd, 2012
The foundation of modern macroeconomic theory (yes theory, the empirical work is scant) is based on the idea that prices (nominal) are sticky. Simplifying greatly, if you adhere to a classical view of the world where all agents have perfect information (no good economist assumes this of course, but it makes a nice straw man [...]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Methodology, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Mar 17th, 2012
From an essay by Peter Kreeft on Progressivism: Thus chronological snobbery is the identification, or confusion, of “change” with “progress.” “Progress” is a value-laden term: it means not just change but change in a certain direction, change for the better. It is like a graph in geometry that charts the movement of some entity (a [...]
Posted in You Can't Have it Both Ways on Mar 15th, 2012
Were I a bit more clever, witty and inclined to make a living by writing, I think I could sell a decent number of books with the title, “Driving Oneself Crazy: Obsessing About Economics from Behind the Wheel of a Car” or something to that effect. Maybe that’s a short project worth pursuing with an [...]
Posted in You Can't Have it Both Ways on Mar 9th, 2012
The new jobs report came out today showing that the unemployment rate stayed steady (not a great indicator of labor market conditions) but that net new jobs created were very healthy (a good indicator). It looks like the recovery is picking up steam. And that is good.
Posted in Education, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Mar 9th, 2012
I advocate a 100% elimination of government K12 schools. 100%. No secrets there. Even if I were forced to accept government schooling, I’d like to see those schools have much more discretion in how they organize curricula and just as important more discretion in how they discipline their students (I don’t mean ruler smacks, I [...]
Posted in Health Care, Price System, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Mar 5th, 2012
When you hear that the “US” spends approximately 18% of her GDP on health care, and that this figure has doubled in the past 30 years, and that the US experience is special insofar as expenditure increases here are larger than just about anywhere on earth, particularly when you learn that US health outcomes are [...]
Posted in Voluntary Society, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Feb 29th, 2012
My readers would really enjoy the site Bleeding Heart Libertarianism. I’m not sure that is a proper characterization of me, but the discussion there is top notch and raises and addresses many of the questions that are simmering beneath some of the content of this site and the work I do. They recently had a [...]
Posted in Behavior, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Feb 28th, 2012
It has been asserted that the happiness of a population, particularly once a base level of income is reached, depends not on some absolute measure of well-being but rather how one’s income compares to others around them. Of course you know what the chess-masters are thinking about the best way to improve outcomes: tax the [...]
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