By the way, interpreting the data in ways that suggest that the poor are getting richer and that consumption “inequality” is declining is not obviously ideological — as [...]
By the way, interpreting the data in ways that suggest that the poor are getting richer and that consumption “inequality” is declining is not obviously ideological — as [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to Fred Hochberg, President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States — an agency charged with helping American firms export more:
Dear Mr. Hochberg:
My e-mail today brought a proud announcement from CG/LA Infrastructure LLC that you’ll speak at one of that company’s [...]
Steve Horwitz is on a roll! In this blog post, he presents Census Bureau data showing that America’s poor people continue to get richer — and are positively wealthy compared to the typical American of the early 1970s.
[...]Here’s a letter that I just sent to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman supports a “Tobin tax” as a means of reducing speculation (”Taxing the Speculators,” Nov. 27).
Bad idea. Speculators buy assets only when they predict that these assets’ prices will rise; speculators sell assets only when they predict [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent earlier today to the Wall Street Journal:
A headline in today’s edition reads “Dollar Falls Against Yen; Japan Hints at Action.” A more revealing headline would read “U.S. Goods Become Less Costly for Japanese People; Japanese Government Hints at Preventing Its Citizens from Enjoying [...]
The Atlas Foundation’s Tom Palmer works tirelessly to promote (true) liberalism and free markets around the world, especially in places where these institutions are most scarce.
You can help. I will.
[...]Until Cafe patron Annie sent me this link, I was unaware of this blog. But I very much like this blog post (which features several excellent quotations from Randy Barnett). (Thanks Annie!)
[...]Suffolk University’s Ben Powell — a GMU economics PhD — reminds us why the pilgrims had reason to be thankful: they got rid of a turkey of an economic arrangement. Here’s a selection from Ben’s short essay:
In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights. [...]
I’m delighted that Hayek’s 1973 Wincott Lecture is now available on-line. Here it is. (HT Richard Wellings of the Institute of Economic Affairs.)
Volume 1 of Hayek’s Law, Legislation, and Liberty is the single most important book that I’ve ever read. This lecture is a good introduction to [...]
Art Carden at Rhodes College is using my book, The Price of Everything, in his Econ 101 class.
Here are some very nice questions he has given his students.
If you are using the book, I would love to see what you’re using as well.
Seekingexports comments on this post:
Mr. Roberts, when you wrote “playing with our money” did you mean TARP funds or the funds from institutional investors such as government employee 401B funds (ie. U of V retirement)?
Even though I don’t think that Lehman and Bear Stearns received rescue funds I think [...]
Bebchuk, Cohen, and Spamann show that even the losers at Bear and Lehman made a killing. They were playing with our money, taxpayer money, lending it to each other, making huge short term profits and paying themselves enormous amounts along the way. The authors argue for changes in executive [...]
Here’s my latest column in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. (The 90-percent figure that I cite early on really should read 85-percent.)
[...]George Selgin’s 1997 monograph (published by the IEA of London) Less Than Zero: The Case for a Falling Price Level in a Growing Economy is now available on-line. What great news!
With confusion about money, banking, and monetary policy running rampant these days, George’s clear and compelling argument for “the [...]
Reading this editorial in today’s Baltimore Sun makes me realize that the world is full of people who believe in square circles, mighty hurricanes whose strongest winds are but gentle breezes, and (of course) cats that bark. I sent this letter in response:
You are right to decry the increasing [...]
He doesn’t like it. (HT: Paul Solman) I share Robb’s skepticism about drawing conclusions from empirical work that either ignores other factors or purports to control for them in the name of creating a “natural experiment.” Having been in the kitchen, I know how this dish gets cooked. [...]
I here plead guilty to interpreting Paul Krugman unfairly. I’ve long read a passage in this 2002 New York Times Magazine essay by Krugman as being evidence of his endorsement of the common but false belief in zero-sum economics — the belief that Joe can get richer only by [...]
In yesterday’s Washington Post, the great George Will has an excellent column — with this outstanding concluding line:
Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of everything except government. The name is environmentalism.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent few days ago to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman asserts that Beijing increases global unemployment by “siphoning much-needed demand away from the rest of the world into the pockets of artificially competitive Chinese exporters” (”World Out of Balance,” Nov. 16). This nefarious outcome [...]
I think Paul Krugman needs to get out and about a little more often. In his recent column he writes about Obama’s worries about the growing national debt:
But in a recent interview with Fox News, the president sounded diffident and nervous about his economic policy. He spoke vaguely about [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Washington Post:
Your front-page story on talented, credentialed, and underemployed Melissa Meyer should dispel the notion that today’s economic troubles are comparable to those of the Great Depression (”In recession, one road led back home,” Nov. 22).
Photos from the 1930s show [...]
On the Oppenheimer Society listserve, someone asked for recommendations of good books and articles on globalization. David Boaz offered this superb list:
•Free Trade Under Fire (2nd ed.) by Douglas Irwin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005)
An empirical verification of the positive benefits of free trade.
•Why Globalization Works by Martin [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent today to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman insists that the nearly ten trillion dollars of projected U.S. government budget deficits over the next decade is a “phantom menace” (”The Phantom Menace,” Nov. 23). The real problem, according to Mr. Krugman, is that government’s [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Bob Herbert insists that manufacturing in the U.S. is a mere shadow of its past proud self – and that this alleged decline of America’s “industrial base” is the result of too many Americans concentrating on finance (”An [...]
Conservative Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby champions the cause of “illegal” immigrants. I applaud him.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent to the Wall Street Journal:
Peter Navarro asserts that “China mops up vast sums of export dollars through sterilization efforts that are tantamount to forced saving. In the process, Chinese consumers lose significant purchasing power because of the undervalued yuan – and Americans lose millions [...]
Here.
The narrative is more important than the facts. People like the narrative because it pleases them. Not because it’s true. Truth is elusive.
But evidence and facts do matter.
So when someone says the TARP was central to preventing disaster, don’t disagree. Don’t talk about how evil and anti-democratic it was [...]
I know. This (HT: Drudge) is how “the system” works. I’m supposed to understand it. But I don’t. It’s a lousy system.
On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”
The section spends two pages [...]
In the current New Yorker, James Surowiecki is properly critical of the economic distortions introduced by taxing debt-financed income much more lightly than taxing equity-financed income.
But his policy conclusion is a non sequitur:
Given the weak state of the economy and of housing prices, a wholesale rewriting of the [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent this morning to the Washington Post:
Harold Meyerson is confused about U.S. trade with China (”A marriage made in China,” Nov. 18).
As incontrovertible evidence that American exporters and producers are harmed by U.S.-China trade, he points to the fact that, since the 1998 agreement [...]
I’m attending now the 27th annual Cato Institute Monetary Conference.
Just before the conference kicked off this morning at 9am (EST), The Economist’s Zanny Minton Beddoes suggested that I do some live blogging while here. I hadn’t thought to do that. (I’m here to moderate one of the afternoon panels.)
But, [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Washington Post:
Harold Meyerson’s discussion of U.S. trade with China is a buffet of errors (”A marriage made in China,” Nov. 18).
For example, portraying trade with China as gutting both America’s export potential and America’s manufacturing base, Meyerson fails to mention [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Wall Street Journal:
John Micetich argues that “if we add up the bailouts to all financial firms, we’re well over $1 trillion, at least 10 times more than the Fred/Fan bailout. Therefore, let’s put most of the blame where it belongs: Wall [...]
There are advantage to universal standards. The most important is economies of scale–once you learn the standard, it applies everywhere. But the disadvantages are subtle and usually much greater than the advantages.
I don’t want a single standard of health care, one standard of what’s “best.” Everyone is different and what [...]
Canadian Rondi Adamson offers her sober thoughts, in this short essay, on Canada’s health-care system. (HT Gerry Nicholls) Here’s a short snippet:
We [Canadians] would do well to not preach, in spite of Barack Obama’s assertion — during his appearance a few weeks ago on the Late Show with David [...]
In this article, I celebrate — on the occasion of his 90th birthday — the central lessons taught by Jim Buchanan (who, I have just learned, will again teach a seminar at GMU this coming Spring semester!).
A key ‘graf from my article:
Buchanan insists that we should always look [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Florida Times-Union / Jacksonville.com:
The only thing worse than the satire in Joseph Steinman’s criticism of capitalism is Mr. Steinman’s command of the facts (”Private enterprise: Far from a perfect system,” Nov. 16).
For example, it’s untrue that health-care in the U.S. [...]
Go here and vote if it moves you. The category is Best Education podcast. You can vote once a day for the next two weeks.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Columnist Paul Krugman writes that policies to promote “job sharing” are “worthy of consideration” (”Free to Lose,” Nov. 13).
Let’s start at the New York Times. I know several economists currently without jobs (and certainly without regular newspaper columns). [...]
This is the opening of my essay that I blogged on last week, “How Little We Know,” on the hopes for financial reform:
When an airplane crashes, expert investigators probe the cause of the crash. Their analysis can lead to changes in aircraft design, flight procedures, and regulations in hopes of [...]
“Saves lives, saves souls” — as wonderfully described by reader Charlie Quidnunc, who deserves a hat tip for drawing my and Russ’s attention to this further addition to the Prosperity Pool.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times Book Review:
Paul Barrett’s review of two books on today’s financial crisis is a verbal bubble inflated by its author’s irrational exuberance for naïve conventional wisdom and his greedy reliance upon morality-play explanations (”Rational Irrationality,” Nov. 15).
The review [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman is impressed that in Germany “unemployment is only slightly higher than it was before the crisis” (”Free to Lose,” Nov. 13). Indeed, Krugman is so bedazzled by the results of Germany’s extensive labor-market interventions that he [...]
Commenting on this post, Daniel Kuehn suggests that when Paul Krugman advocates European-style labor-market restrictions and subsidies, he (Krugman) does so not as a means of increasing employment today – in the midst of a recession – but, rather, as a means of keeping employment from falling as [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
To combat unemployment, Paul Krugman supports “labor rules that discourage firing” (”Free to Lose,” Nov. 13). If a student in my Principles of Economics course ever wrote such a thing on an exam, he or she would earn [...]
Here’s something to chew on for those who trust politicians with power. (HT Fletcher Mangum)
[...]Here is my take on financial reform at The Economists Voice. Other opinions by Posner, Richardson and Acharya, Hubbard , and Calomiris, here. My piece is very Hayekian as you might guess from the title.
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Wall Street Journal:
Thomas Frank worries that, if Uncle Sam creates “One Big Regulator” for financial markets, this czar will be an industry insider who does more harm than good (”The Real Danger of ‘One Big Regulator’,” Nov. 11). Frank is [...]
Here’s a thoughtful piece on the merits and demerits of criminalizing insider trading.
Among the most common arguments made today in favor of the criminalization of insider trading (as opposed to letting corporations, in competition for capital, decide which information is and isn’t appropriate for insiders to trade on) is [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Washington Post:
Robert Samuelson writes that “Depression prevention means supporting consumption and asset markets” (”The next economic bubble?” Nov. 10). This claim contains a modicum of truth resting atop a mountain of misunderstanding.
What’s true is that the supply of money should [...]
A very illuminating story on “jobs saved.” I think the estimates and methodology reported here are not the same as the “one million jobs saved or created” discussed here. But the real importance of this story isn’t the inconsistency or the ludicrousness of claiming that exactly 12,374 jobs have [...]
My favorite perspective on the political economy of counterfactuals came from a reporter (Tom Foreman of CNN) who gave me his analysis of politicians and the economy. It went something like this:
Politicians taking credit from what they’ve done for the economy are like little kids working the controls of [...]
Krugman and DeLong have been attacking Mankiw and Meltzer for mocking the “jobs saved” metric of the Obama Administration. Here is Krugman:
Brad DeLong catches Allan Meltzer claiming that there’s something nonsensical about the Obama administration making estimates of jobs saved thanks to its policies. But it’s not just Meltzer [...]
Thomas Sowell has said that economics helps you understand that there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. In that spirit, I want to recommend Arnold Kling’s study of the financial crisis, Not What They Had in Mind. My favorite quote from the essay is a variant on Sowell’s:
The lesson is [...]
The Gallup poll has discovered (HT: Catherine Rampell) that Saturday is the day of the week that consumers spend the most money. In a brilliant policy innovation, President Obama has decreed that from now on, every day of the week will be called Saturday. The ap reports:
“This will [...]
From an article on Goldman Sachs, from a conversation with the CEO, Lloyd Blankfein:
He starts with a little humility. He understands that “people are pissed off, mad, and bent out of shape” at bankers’ actions. Goldman played its part in the meltdown that almost destroyed the global financial system. It, [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Arguing that “economic incentives in health care” are perverse, David Leonhardt asserts that “As long as doctors and hospitals are paid for each extra test and treatment, they will err on the side of more care and not always [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent this morning to the Gray Lady:
Slavoj Zizek rightly complains – if with understatement bordering on the vulgar – of being “deceived” by communism (”20 Years of Collapse,” Nov. 9). But like many other pundits who feign wisdom by steering clear of what they [...]
Here are two excellent videos for your November 9th celebration of communism’s collapse.
The first is from the always-excellent reason.tv.
The second is of Hayek discussing socialism.
[...]My colleague Pete Boettke reflects on that marvelous day, exactly 20 years ago.
[...]This week’s EconTalk is Scott Sumner on monetary policy. Sumner argues that monetary policy was too restrictive in late 2008 and turned a mild recession into a doozy. I don’t agree yet but that argument and his whole perspective is very interesting.
Here’s a letter that I sent this morning to the Wall Street Journal:
Kudos to Mark Spitznagel for drawing attention to the important but neglected work of the late Ludwig von Mises (”The Man Who Predicted the Depression,” Nov. 7).
But while Mr. Spitznagel is correct that Keynesians ignored Mises’s [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Washington Post:
Brian Czech repeats one of today’s most frequently heard mantras – namely, that continued economic and population growth spell disaster for the planet and humanity (Letters, Nov. 5).
Virtually all available evidence contradicts this doomsday claim. For example, the earth’s [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent this moring to the Washington Post:
Michael Gerson, Charles Krauthammer, and Eugene Robinson speculate today about Tuesday’s election results. What do these results signal about the Republican and Democratic parties? About Pres. Obama? About Michael Steele? Sarah Palin? Glenn Beck?
Speculations centered on [...]
Commenting on this post, Nathaniel asks me to re-post this essay (entitled “I Won’t Vote!”) — or, I think that this is the essay he’s asking about. Then again, perhaps it’s not, because a (confessedly very) quick look turns up no evidence that I posted it earlier.
Or maybe [...]
There are only very few scholars — and even fewer economists — whose every word is worthwhile to read. George Selgin is in that elite group.
Here’s Selgin’s review of Benn Steil’s and Manuel Hinds’s wonderful, if flawed, book, Money, Markets & Sovereignty. The opening paragraphs of the review [...]
It’s up to 10.2%. Trouble ahead. Trouble behind. The politics is going to be very tough. More pressure to “fix” the economy. The possibility that we are in the mess we are in because of past attempts to fix the economy is very alien to most politicians and most economists. [...]
Partisan politics is morally distorting. Paul Jacob offers a common-sensical example of why.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
The writers of the eight letters you published today on how to improve teaching join Susan Engel – author of the op-ed that sparked these letters – in utterly misdiagnosing the problem with K-12 education.
Suppose that newspapers [...]
Here’s a letter of mine published in today’s Financial Times:
From Dr Donald J. Boudreaux.
Sir, You report (October 27) that George Soros is committing $50m to start a new think-tank whose purpose will be to displace what he considers (as you summarise it) “the unwavering belief in unchecked free [...]
In this post, Bob Higgs answers some of the critics of an earlier post (found here).
[...]This month, as we celebrate the happy events of twenty years ago, I recommend a great book (Political Pilgrims) by Paul Hollander — one that I recommended about a year ago.
Hollander also wrote this fine op-ed — “Murderous Idealism” — for Yesterday’s Washington Post. Here’s a key paragraph [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent on Friday to the New York Times:
Writing about health-care, Paul Krugman asserts that “conservatives … don’t want Americans to have universal coverage” (”The Defining Moment,” Oct. 30).
Among the earliest lessons that I teach my freshman economics students are (1) intentions are not results, [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent back on June 17th to WWL radio (870 on your AM dial in the NOLA area):
A listener called in today during the one o’clock hour to assert that “health care isn’t like other services” – and so it can’t be supplied reliably on the [...]
The Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby reports some useful facts to counteract some of the stupid hyperbole spewed in the today’s health-care debate. Here’s his closing:
The critics do have one thing right: More competition would bring down health care premiums. But the way to increase competition is not by adding [...]
Read it. It explains how Geithner (as head of the NY Fed) gave AIG’s counterparties 100 cents on the dollar.
Why? He didn’t have to. It stinks.
[...]I’m honored and delighted that Zero Hedge has published a long excerpt of my article “Prostitutes, pimps & pols.”
(HTs to Nick Calapa and Ken Levy)
[...]Here is the video where Obama uses the Post Office as an example of why the public option won’t hurt private competitors. His argument is that Fed Ex and UPS thrive even though there’s a Post Office. He forgets to mention that the Post Office has a legal monopoly [...]
Thought this story from Newsweek on Soros’s new economics/policy enterprising was unintentionally amusing:
Now financier George Soros is announcing a $50 million effort to speed things along. This week Soros is gathering some of the leading practitioners of the market-skeptic school, who were marginalized during the era of “free-market fundamentalism,” [...]
Here is one attempt, from ProPublica. It’s pretty good. Unfortuately it only looks at Treasury commitments and does not include the Fed. Does anyone know a better or more thorough look at what has been spent so far?
[...]I sent the letter below to the Los Angeles Times:
Although California’s government hasn’t formally raised tax rates, starting tomorrow it will withhold “10% more than it already does in state income taxes” (”California to withhold a bigger chunk of paychecks,” Oct. 31). You call this move by Sacramento “a [...]
Word for word, these are two of the most useful books I’ve ever read.
The first is Strunk’s & White’s Elements of Style, whose 50th anniversary is ably celebrated today by Mark Garvey in the Wall Street Journal. The second is Economical Writing, by Deirdre McCloskey.
Writing bad is [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent earlier this afternoon to the Denver Post:
David Harsanyi properly ridicules Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s “fantastical proposition that 450,000 words of new regulations, rules, mandates, penalties, price controls, taxes and bureaucracy will have the transformative power to [as Ms. Pelosi asserts] ‘provide affordable, quality health care [...]
