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Ron Paul on Assassinations
Interesting stuff.
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Posted in Self Interest Leave a comment
Ideas Lead to Tragedy in Rural India
This WSJ article offers a textbook case of a “good” idea gone wrong because of the unintended consequences. Last week, a commenter on this blog defended the Federal government’s early involvement in agriculture:
“As for agriculture, again, you don’t seem to understand either history or the functioning of free markets. Making recommendations about what to plant [...]
Posted in Knowledge problem, Unintended Consequences Tagged agriculture, fertilizer, ideas, india, wsj Leave a comment
A Question for the First Lady
The SF Chronicle recently reported on Michelle Obama’s ambitious plans to curb childhood obesity through federally funded programs aimed at helping parents and children make better eating decisions. The article stresses the urgency of government action given sky-rocketing health-costs and even goes as far to label rising obesity as a national security concern, since more [...]
Posted in Freedom, Government Spending, Unintended Consequences, politics Tagged bad policy, michelle obama, obamanomics, school lunches 11 Comments
Stossel Reports on Gov’t Abuse of Power
As many predicted, Team Obama has decided to confront climate change with specific expenditures of tax-payer money that end up in the pockets of the politically well-connected, rather than with broad-based tax incentives.
The comments section below the video contains a gem from 4Stanzas:
So, we’re paying higher taxes and high rates of inflation in the hopes [...]
Posted in Government Spending, Innovation Tagged cronyism, green police, stossel, the seen and the unseen Leave a comment
Sowell, Mises, and the Pain of Going Against the Grain
In the last two days, I have observed that people who possess strong convictions about the way the world is can frequently turn bitter if their worldview substantially differs from popular opinion. The first piece of evidence was a quote by Milton Friedman about Ludwig von Mises:
“The story I remember best happened at the initial [...]
Posted in Folk Economics, Psychology & Behavior Tagged ideas, intellectuals, mises, socialism, sowell 1 Comment
Greg Mankiw Still Signaling Something…
I will always have a deep respect for Professor N. Gregory Mankiw for introducing me to the basic principles of economics. In my opinion, he is one of the most sensible and even-handed mainstream economists.
However, I have commented before on Mankiw’s seeming lack of self-awareness when it comes to patting himself and similarly accomplished academic [...]
Posted in Psychology & Behavior, Self Interest, politics Tagged CEA, citations, harvard-goldman filter, mankiw, Self Interest, signaling Leave a comment
The Hangover Theory
I could write a whole essay about the dirty tricks Paul Krugman employs in this Slate magazine article from 1998. Instead, I will focus on just one (okay, maybe a few more than one…).
Krugman insists that the Austrian theory of the business cycle is a pure misunderstanding of all the Keynesian and post-Keynesian economic “developments”. [...]
Posted in Banking & Finance, Government Spending, Unintended Consequences Tagged austrian theory, discourse, krugman, recession Leave a comment
More Monopoly Power in Education
Josh’s letter to the editor of the Daily Cal is bolstered by this article from Joe Klein, writing in Time Magazine:
Toward the end of his life, Shanker began to realize the union was headed down the wrong path. In a 1993 speech, he talked about the need for more accountability: “I wouldn’t be saying these [...]
Posted in Government Spending, education Tagged charter schools, joe klein, monopoly, unions Leave a comment
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