Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Extended Order on Jul 27th, 2012
The worst peanut crop in three decades and we consumers have to suffer with the prospect of only a half-dozen types of peanut butters rather than the typical dozen or so. By the way, keep your eyes out for similar signs and see how often companies feel like they have to apologize for price increases. […]
Posted in Economics 238W, Environment, Extended Order, Institutions, Price System, Property Rights, Resources, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jun 28th, 2012
George Stigler, I think, once quipped, "If you never missed a flight in your life, you've spent too much time in an airport." While there is much wisdom in this observation, I would recommend not taking it too seriously. We like to get to airports early so that we do not miss our flights. There […]
Posted in Extended Order on Jun 25th, 2012
One of my favorite scenes from The Little Mermaid is the one where Ariel brings scuttle some of the loot she found from the shipwreck for examination: It’s a dingle-hopper! Essential for combing hair. It’s funny. Why? Because of course all of us know that such a tined object is used for this instead. A […]
Posted in Environment, Extended Order on Jun 22nd, 2012
A few weeks ago the Wall Street Journal ran a piece (I don't have the link off-hand, I am on the road) discussing how the Sierra Club has thrown natural gas under the bus (call it Sierra Clubbed! Update: Chris M. found the link, thanks!). They have a movement bubbling called "Beyond Gas" or something […]
Posted in Extended Order, Standards of Living, trade on Jun 7th, 2012
One of our favorite places in all of Rochester is the Green Acres Fruit Farm. I do recommend it (and no, no one I know works there nor do I own a piece of it nor did Exxon pay me to say that). In fact one reason we choose to live around here is to […]
Posted in Extended Order, Institutions, Politics on Jun 1st, 2012
Elinor Ostrom’s book Governing the Commons is a marvel. Though she was recognized in 2009 with the Nobel Prize in Economics for this work, it is still in my view not widely understood or shared. The simple lesson (told in glorious detail throughout her career) is that there is a difference between “Open Access Resources” […]
Posted in Extended Order, Government Gone Wild, Institutions, Unintended Consequences on May 7th, 2012
Can a good thing be turned into a bad thing. It appears that Americans are responding to the taxes, exhortations, health risks and other anti-smoking efforts and have actually been reducing their smoking at rates faster than experts initially calculated. So what’s the problem? Some of you are old enough to remember the tobacco boondoggle […]
Posted in Extended Order, Methodology on Mar 20th, 2012
It required me to revisit the debates (actually, did they ever really have debates, or do we just debate their ideas today?) between the French Rationalist thinkers with the Scottish Evolutionary thinkers. The Scottish thinkers understood the value of tradition and urged us to be humble when it came to the following of rules, most […]
Posted in Extended Order on Feb 20th, 2012
Frank Knight was one of the first economists to clearly describe the difference between risk and uncertainty. Risk is something for which the probability distribution is reasonably well understood ex-ante. For example, if you secure your daily bread by a coin flip, we can understand the likelihood that you will obtain a meal upon any […]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Extended Order, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Dec 21st, 2011
We might as well make this an ongoing series as well. Let’s stop and think about why some of the Occupy Wall Streeters are upset. They are upset that working hard and getting an education has not produced a “fair” return for them, and that some folks in society are getting an “unfair” return. Fine, […]