Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Environment, Government Gone Wild on Aug 19th, 2018
Here in the Sugarlands Visitor Center at the Great Smoky National Park we see: I love that there is a nearly empty collection box. The park tries to collect small amounts of fees by selling trail maps and wildflower and wildlife guides, but at $1 a pop that is probably barely enough to cover the […]
Posted in Central Planning, Constitution, Government Gone Wild on Jul 28th, 2018
In thinking about arguments that I have heard made against the NSA’s PRISM program (this program is basically the limitless power the NSA seems to be exercising in collecting an ungodly amount of information, without warrant, from all Americans’ use of the internet), a little conundrum came to mind. One of the things the NSA […]
Posted in Government Thuggery on May 1st, 2018
My thought for today … when I mention that this is a sad day, rather than engaging with the reality of socialism’s century of mass murder, I get something like, “but capitalists sell weapons to profit from war.” OK, sure. (1) Who fights wars? (2) Who sold Che Guevara his weapons? Capitalists also sell beer […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Economists, History on Dec 14th, 2017
I have written this a zillion times before … but I have been in and around economics since 1993, and never in my entire career have I had a teacher or article or book teach me about “trickle down” economics. This is a perjorative term conjured from the ether by anti-market proponents, and the strawiest […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Dynamism - Not, Economic Illiteracy, Government Gone Wild, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., Taxation on Dec 11th, 2017
As you ponder the inane debates about tax “reform” (i.e. deck chairs and symbolism), suppose you take the work of Martin Feldstein seriously. He has previously estimated that the dead weight loss in an economy due to taxation would be up to 30% of the size of the tax take. Now, I suspect the direct […]
Posted in Disingenuous, Government Gone Wild, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Dec 7th, 2017
I will preface this again by arguing that universities, when they are not functioning like kindergartens, are still a shining example of US excellence, sources of research and learning and hopefully positive spillovers, and we probably want to not destroy that. That said, redistributing priorities within many universities is probably in order and this tax […]
Posted in Government Gone Wild, Tribalism on Dec 6th, 2017
Somehow, I do not think that even the current train wreck of both our actual political governance and our political discourse will encourage anyone to actually question whether government should be as big, powerful and as expansive as it is. As one of my favorite Twitter feeds now reminds me, “Eat Arby’s.”
Posted in Central Planning, Extended Order, History, Institutions on Nov 23rd, 2017
Today I reprint a slightly edited piece I put together several years ago. I’d change a lot of it, from the content to the tone, if I were to do it over – but one must live with one’s younger self. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Four centuries after the celebration of the first Thanksgiving, there […]
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 ethical foundations, Government Gone Wild, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Nov 8th, 2017
I am definitely not getting invited to dinner parties after asking this question. When people illustrate the absolutely brutal record of socialism and communism as implemented in human history, we get the usual, “well, if only MY GUY was in charge” or if “only REAL and TRUE socialism were tried” then it would have worked, […]
