Topic: Economic Education

Here’s Why We Tolerate Fake Check Scams

– January 2, 2021

“Solving the problem of job scam checks isn’t as easy as one might think. Changes to a tightly-wound system like the check system involve tradeoffs. You don’t get something for nothing.” ~ J.P. Koning

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Ten Remarkable Financial Events of 2020

– January 1, 2021

“A year like 2020 educates another generation of traders and corporate managers, contributes to more robust market and exchange designs, and draws in innovators and risk-takers seeking to capitalize on the next crisis opportunity. Whatever 2021 has in store, it is unlikely to replicate financial market conditions witnessed throughout 2020.” ~ Peter C. Earle

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When I Knew More Than Hayek

– December 31, 2020

“The main problem with central planning is that a great many dispersed individuals have local knowledge that cannot be collected and processed even by the most noble, intelligent, and hard-working planner. Progress against Covid-19 requires respecting the message of Hayek’s paper, by heeding the local knowledge of doctors fighting Covid-19 in their clinics and hospitals.” ~ Arthur M. Diamond, Jr.

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Feelings Over Facts Is Dangerous to Human Liberty

– December 31, 2020

“If we redefine “harm” to mean whatever we want it to mean, we can rule over others. If your speech causes me discomfort, that’s harm. If your clothes offend me, that’s harm. If your moral or political opinions are different from mine, you’re harming both me and everyone else that I am angelically trying to help. If you’re objecting to my spending of the public money, you’re harming the people I say I intended to help.” ~ Joakim Book

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What Will The Stimulus Stimulate?

– December 31, 2020

“We shouldn’t be surprised that what ultimately emerged was a dog’s breakfast of giveaways for special interests. That’s the nature of the political beast. As we continue to cede power to enormous rent-creating operations called governments, we shouldn’t be surprised by the results.” ~ Art Carden

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Knowledge Problems With Discretionary Central Banking

– December 29, 2020

“You need to make some truly heroic assumptions in order for discretionary monetary policy to outperform rule-bound policy. Rarely do any of those assumptions hold. Never do they all hold. If we want a well-functioning central bank, the best we can do is to have rules.” ~ Alexander W. Salter

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Ronald Coase: A Birthday Appreciation

– December 29, 2020

“Like Adam Smith before him, Ronald Coase remains highly cited but still underrated. His ideas on transaction costs, rules, and organizations were influential, but as I wrote when he passed in 2013, ‘a few minutes with the ‘externalities’ section of almost any principles book, or a few seconds watching and listening to TV and radio discussions of environmental policy — suggests that it [“The Problem of Social Cost” specifically] is not influential enough.'” ~ Art Carden

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Twelve Principles of International Trade: Part 3

– December 28, 2020

“The notion that people will be enriched if their government artificially impedes their access to goods and services is as detached from reality as is the belief that the future can be revealed through astrology.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

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In Defense of the Tom Cruise Rant

– December 25, 2020

“It’s sad that businesses must waste time, money and brain space on compliance, but businesses ultimately must be bloodless and ideology-blind in pursuit of profits. Thank goodness they must.” ~ John Tamny

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Drink Your Coffee, Be Considerate, and Fight Covid-19

– December 25, 2020

“Lockdowns are a blunt policy instrument typical of government officials who can only pretend to know how individuals make choices and the tradeoffs they face. However, we can still be considerate of the choices people make and fight Covid-19.” ~ Byron Carson

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Your Trauma and Mine: A Retrospective on 2020

– December 25, 2020

“The many layers of trauma we’ve all experienced this year are awesome to contemplate. But if you are reading this, you are like me, a survivor. We are wounded but in other ways stronger than before, more dedicated to truth, more committed to the ideals of freedom, less naive and ready to go forth in battle not to let civilization be dismantled. Rather we must defend it with everything we have to offer.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker

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Digital Currencies and US Dollar Dominance

– December 24, 2020

“Is this the end for the US Dollar as the world’s reserve currency? As Churchill might have said, ‘…This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’” ~ Colin Lloyd

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