Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Environment, ethical foundations, incentives, Institutions, Knowledge, Property Rights on Nov 19th, 2017
Before I proceed with this post, let’s get this out of the way. Here is a really cute elephant picture: And let me get the following out of the way: even though I understand the economics and arguments about why we may want to allow and perhaps even encourage hunting, I don’t like it at […]
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Tribalism on Oct 10th, 2016
Ezra Klein. Go listen for the 70 minute interview he has with Tyler Cowen. Take notice of how careful he is in thinking about all of the questions – I think the point he makes about Bob Dylan is excellent, and should be a marker for how we talk about seemingly far more important issues. […]
Posted in Central Planning, Development, Entrepreneurs, Extended Order, growth, Innovation, Macroeconomics, Market Failures on May 27th, 2016
In revisiting my class discussions on the economics of public goods, I came across a paper from the OECD that incredibly I had never been aware of. One of the major results in the paper is shocking. Now the sample size, as with all cross-country analyses, is small, and there are the usual caveats about […]
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Environment, ethical foundations, Extended Order, Standards of Living, Ultimate Resource on Feb 15th, 2016
… I wished that people could stop for a moment to celebrate the life and contributions of people like Norman Borlaug. He is probably the greatest “farmer” of all-time, and arguably has done more good for humanity than the entire combination of leaders and rulers who have ever walked the face of this Earth. If […]
Posted in Education, Employment, Entrepreneurs on Oct 14th, 2015
Our universities almost exclusively send the message to students that they should pursue their passions, find a career they love, and explore. There is nothing of course wrong with those notions insofar as it goes, but they are at best of secondary importance and consideration. Why? All of the above serves as mere consumption value […]
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Regulation on Sep 2nd, 2015
Crowd-sourced beer. Note, this isn’t the traditional crowd-funding to get a brewery started, rather this brewery gets recipes and recipe ideas from customers every month and that is what it brews and sells for that month. One way it is able to do this is that it presells about 80% of all of its beer […]
Posted in Adaptation, Entrepreneurs, Environment, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jul 16th, 2015
Been reading a book on … apples. Early in the book there is a brief section on the history of good-tasting apples. What the author tells us is that most wild and old-time apples are called “quick spitters” because they taste so bad you spit them out quick. The good fruit, whether originally an accident of […]
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Environment on Jun 23rd, 2015
No doubt I’d have chosen biotechnology research. The field was not as developed when I was in college, plus I stupidly decided that a tiny liberal arts college was a perfect place to go to study physics. I can’t think of many better fields that have the potential to help humanity in so many ways, […]
Posted in Entrepreneurs, Fun Facts on Jun 9th, 2015
1. “Forest carbon sequestration associated with increased harvests for bioenergy would be offset by new forest growth given sufficient time.” In other words, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that matters for climate change is cumulative, so it doesn’t matter whether we sequester (or cut) carbon today versus out in the future. This […]
Posted in Adaptation, Entrepreneurs on May 13th, 2015
Virtually every sweet potato ever eaten from cultivated crops, for thousands of years, naturally and organically produced, is transgenic (i.e. a GMO). It’s just that the hand of man did not do the modifying, rather the hand of Gaia/God/you_name_it. Citrus greening is caused by an invasive bacteria from Asia and is decimating American citrus production. […]