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Category Archives: Government Spending
Digging up the Archives
Here’s the introduction from Don Boudreaux’s prophetic essay from 2001 on his post 9-11 fears:
I’m writing these words in the early-morning serenity of my home, two weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks. All appears peaceful, fine, and as it was before September 11. My son, Thomas, is upstairs sleeping the sweet sleep of a [...]
Who Are You Calling Friend, Buddy?
An email I received this morning from attorney general candidate Alberto Torrico with critical commentary by yours truly:
Dear Friend,
For the first time in California’s history, our state government spent more money on prisons than higher education.
So? This is a meaningless comparison. Maybe it costs more to lock someone up than to send him to school. I’m all for controlling penitentiary costs, but [...]
Ideas pt.2
Last post, I talked about the dangerous potential of government implemented top-down bad ideas. I think every sane person will agree that Chinese peasantry backyard steel production was clearly a horrible blunder. However, it’s not satisfactory to eliminate only the obviously foolish government programs (farm subsidies come to mind). There are high costs of government [...]
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 [...]
Also posted in Freedom, 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 [...]
Also posted in Innovation Tagged cronyism, green police, stossel, the seen and the unseen 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”. [...]
Also posted in Banking & Finance, Unintended Consequences Tagged austrian theory, discourse, krugman, recession Leave a comment
Dangerous Keynesianism and Other Thoughts
If you’re paying people to dig for moneybags, you are wasting other people’s money. I say other people because there’s no way you’d be that stupid to waste your own resources. Yet that’s what a lot of people think the government should do. Can someone convince me that it’s a good idea to pay people [...]
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 [...]
Central Planning and the Census