Topic: Economic Education

Economic Education, Fiscal Policy, Government

When Politicians Say Fair Tax, They Only Mean More Tax

– April 30, 2021

“So what exactly is anyone’s ‘fair share?’ That’s a hard question, and it’s made harder still when people tasked with answering it do everything they can to avoid answering it. As long as this continues, calls for the rich to pay ‘their fair share’ will never end because, in light of the numbers, proponents seem not to mean ‘fair’ at all. They simply mean, ‘more.'” ~ Antony Davies & James R. Harrigan

Economic Education, Fiscal Policy, Government

Burning Issues of Government Spending

– April 29, 2021

“Government spending starts with taking money from taxpayers and setting 20 percent of it on fire. Even if the remaining funds were spent on very efficient projects, they have very little chance of creating net benefits for the economy.” ~ Thomas L. Hogan

Economic Education, Free Markets

Markets Help People Care For You Without Caring About You

– April 29, 2021

“To those of you who are working to reduce transaction costs and find easier ways for strangers to cooperate, this absent-minded professor offers a heartfelt ‘thank you.’ Yes, I will try to be more careful next time–but as someone who routinely misplaces keys, coffee cups, sunglasses, and so on, I appreciate the efforts of those working to make these unfortunate incidents a little less disastrous.” ~ Art Carden

Economic Education, Economic Trends, Financial Markets

The Everything Bubble and What it Means for Your Money

– April 28, 2021

“The Everything Bubble is a grand illusion, money is growing more plentiful, credit more available. Asset prices are not really rising; it is the value of money which is being systematically undermined. I wonder whether the motto for this pandemic will be carpe diem, quam minimum credula pecunia – seize the day, place no trust in money?” ~ Colin Lloyd

Economic Education, Economic History, Free Markets

Moritz J. Bonn: A Classical Liberal Voice in a Collectivist World

– April 28, 2021

“Moritz J. Bonn was one of those classical-liberal voices of the twentieth century who understood how and why the world had turned away from its earlier roots in a philosophy, a politics, and an economics of freedom. He, like others from those middle decades of the last century, still has something of value to say and share with us. We should not allow them to be completely forgotten.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

Art and Culture, Economic Education

What Chess Can Teach Us About Economic Justice

– April 27, 2021

“Congrats to all the hard-working chess-producers out there: you deserve every cent you earn – even the ones that governments steal from you. In any counterfactual world, we’d want somebody’s skills and work and knowledge, in which case they would deserve that wealth. It had to be someone, and it happened to be you. Congrats!” ~ Joakim Book

Books, Economic Education

The State Is Not Entrepreneurial

– April 27, 2021

“But the State is not a company, and McCloskey and Mingardi dismantle the theoretical errors of Professor Mazzucato, who, like many others, prefers to ignore the analysis of the nature and consequences of the fundamental characteristic of the State: the monopoly of legitimate coercion.” ~ Carlos Rodríguez Braun

Authoritarianism, Economic Education, Government

Building Up the State Means Pulling People Down

– April 26, 2021

“Mariana Mazzucato and Joe Biden are on ‘missions’ with ‘big plans.’ But their political missions and their big economic central plans require all of us to give up our own individual and personal plans to be straightjacketed into their compulsory designs for us. We need to remember Adam Smith’s words in The Wealth of Nations, ‘The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people . . . would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had the folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.'” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

Art and Culture, Economic Education, Environmentalism

The Ignorant World and What to Do About It

– April 25, 2021

“It’s a counterintuitive notion and a difficult thing to wrap one’s head around, that the world can both be better and is still in many respects bad. We do nobody any favors, least of all our children, by exaggerating one while forgetting how far we’ve come.” ~ Joakim Book

Central Banking, Economic Education, Monetary Policy

Make No Mistake: Programmable Digital Currencies Are Weaponizable Money

– April 24, 2021

“Money, in its most basic form, is an irreplaceable facilitator of economic calculation and a social instrument making cooperation possible on a global scale. Policies of the sort which programmable digital currencies bring into the realm of possibility potentially turn those on their head, introducing new possibilities for intentional––and systematic––coercion.” ~ Peter C. Earle

Economic Education, Free Trade

You Think This Is A Game? Not Quite

– April 23, 2021

“Sports and gaming metaphors certainly have their place, but if we take them too seriously we get lost in details and lose sight of the greatest positive-sum game in the world: specialization and division of labor. When you’re bowling or playing a board game, there’s a winner and a loser. When you’re bargaining, however, everyone’s a winner.” ~ Art Carden

Economic Education, Free Trade, Government

Steel Follies and the Perils of Politically-Controlled Trade

– April 22, 2021

“American citizens and manufacturers should be allowed to buy every commodity they choose as cheaply as the world can produce it. The time has come to end the medieval pursuit of a “just price” for imports and to cease permitting politicians and bureaucrats to have economic life-and-death power over American businesses.” ~ James Bovard