Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Competition, Economic Illiteracy, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jan 23rd, 2013
We have an article in the UK lamenting the fact that US and western nation foodies and health food advocates are driving up the price of quinoa, a grain grown primarily in poor countries. Without getting into the economics too much, the article suggests that rising world demand raises the price of the grain, making […]
Posted in Competition, labor markets, Price System, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Oct 5th, 2012
I had two nice young folks stop by my house last night canvassing for a candidate for a local State Senate race. Too much was covered in our conversation for a single post, but id like to make two points. First, to their great credit, they were actually very interested in hearing what makes me […]
Posted in Competition on Sep 18th, 2012
One of the (formerly) attractive aspects of sending one’s children to a non-government school is that the school could experiment with new educational techniques, expose students to different subject matters, and put students in different classroom settings than the 90% of American children that are enrolled in Cookie Cutter Central School District Neil Armstrong School […]
Posted in Competition on Aug 12th, 2012
It's a pity that neither the USPS nor UPS delivers on Sundays. Think about all of the items you receive from each of those delivery services. What is the percentage of "awesome stuff / crappy stuff" for UPS as compared to the Post Office? I'm not really making any particular point here of course, just […]
Posted in Competition, Methodology, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Apr 3rd, 2012
One of the towering figures (literally too!) of 20th century public intellectuals was John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1958 he made a huge splash with his book The Affluent Society which was a criticism of resource depletion, inequality and consumerism, among other ideas. It is actually quite an enjoyable read, I do recommend it. One of […]
Posted in Competition, Education on Feb 21st, 2012
In the long run, the clear winners from competitive market processes operating reasonably well are consumers. One need look no further than what it costs to obtain the most basic goods and services today as compared to even a generation ago. For example, the laptop I am writing this on has 4GB of RAM, 700 […]
Posted in Competition on Jan 19th, 2012
Kodak has filed for bankruptcy protection and reorganization. Read the AP News Story here. Here is a probably very little-known fact about the company buried down in the article: In 1975, engineer Steven Sasson created the first digital camera, a toaster-size prototype capturing black-and-white images at a resolution of 0.1 megapixels. Class starts in a […]
Posted in Central Planning, Competition on Nov 14th, 2011
It’s 87,576 to nothing. What am I talking about? Well, there are 87,576 governmental jurisdictions in the United States – well, at least there were when the 2o02 Census of Governments was conducted. And what does the score mean? How many of them do you think are truly “free enterprise” zones? How many of them […]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Competition, Entrepreneurs, Environment on Oct 10th, 2011
Abraham Gesner’s New York Kerosene company, in 1856, began to make kerosene for the purposes of illumination. When it brought that product to market, it did not advertise itself as, “having the potential to save the whales,” though indeed that was its effect. When it did the research on this fuel, it was not the […]
Posted in Competition, Extended Order, Voluntary Society, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Sep 9th, 2011
The beginning of every academic year brings me great joy. Not only do I get to meet lots of new interesting and bright people, but I have never failed to be introduced to a new way of thinking, a new idea, a new outlook on something I have seen in only one light for a […]
