Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Price System on Nov 8th, 2013
For those of you who like to draw supply and demand curves, please help your dear professor with this little exercise. Suppose that the demand for activities that generate carbon and carbon dioxide is sharply inelastic, or even in the world of unicorns, perfectly inelastic. What IS the social cost problem in that situation? And […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Price System on Oct 11th, 2013
If jobs are such a benefit to each of us, then why are we not paying our employers for the privilege of working? Indeed, if jobs are such a benefit, shouldn’t proponents of the minimum wage be horrified at what their position is saying?
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Environment, Price System on Oct 10th, 2013
Today my colleague Steve has a wonderful post discussing how economics is compassionate, or at least more compassionate than seat-of-the-pants emotional theorizing, because it is one of the few intellectual disciplines that forces us, as a matter of foundational methodology, to think about ALL people. This is nice, because in conversations about the desirability of […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Inequality, Price System on Sep 25th, 2013
I’ve been met by two common complaints lately. First that the rich have undue political power in America. Second, that the poor have too little labor market power. Both may be true. I don’t know. But then riddle me these: (1) If the rich have so much influence, then how come the vast majority of […]
Posted in Behavior, Price System on Jul 29th, 2013
This is a portion of my most recent water bill: You know how much attention is paid to the practices of credit card companies and mortgage companies and the like? It would be nice if similar scrutiny were universally applied. We get at least three bills that are just like this one. When you look […]
Posted in Price System, Property Rights on Jul 1st, 2013
Or not. Saturday we linked to a “Sustainability” post about opinions on plastic bags. There is a hidden gem in the comments: and those of us who do not want to use them every time we shop will not be paying for them as an overhead cost in the price of goods A common argument […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Price System, Taxation on Jun 18th, 2013
That’s what armchair tax theorists are. Consider an example from the book Garbology: Fifteen cents [of a tax] is a relative pittance, but it does add up over hundreds of bags, and so it had an immediate impact on the behavior of Irish consumers … … The tax was never much of a burden because relatively […]
Posted in Price System, trade on Jun 14th, 2013
How come when folks read headlines like this, “An electric eGallon costs three times less than real gasoline!” that they (correctly) don’t worry about all of the jobs that will be destroyed in the oil and gas sector? We’ll dig into their calculation later to check for its accuracy. UPDATE: Link updated. Those of you […]
Posted in incentives, Price System on Jun 5th, 2013
Suppose a football team faces a third down and 5 yards to go situation. Suppose that the team REALLY needs to make a first down (and that they always punt on 4th down no matter what). Suppose their coaches love statistics. In deciding whether to execute a running play or passing play they look back […]
Posted in Price System on May 28th, 2013
“America is the only country that …” It’s a not so subtle argument from authority. And no I don’t believe this is a cutesy “did you know” factoid. Aside from the obvious government navel gazing: 1) it’s highly likely that American mega businesses would support a change along those lines. 2) at many margins such […]
