Topic: Economic Education

The State Negative Externality Problem

– December 16, 2020

“A smart, strong, John Marshall-type chief justice, as opposed to a weasley Taney-like one, would have used the Texas case to clarify the problem of state negative externalities vis-a-vis presidential elections. How many state and federal laws and constitutions can be violated before somebody has the authority to do something about it, and what, precisely, can be done?” ~ Robert E. Wright

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The Rescue From Madness

– December 15, 2020

“With governments around the Covid world suspending everything that people value, we suddenly warped society. Truth-speakers are only listened to if they are politically expedient. We impaired the workings of a free society, voluntarily, for a promise that someone, somewhere might not catch the flu.” ~ Joakim Book

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The Bureaucratic Deal Got Us Into This Mess. The Bourgeois Deal Will Get Us Out

– December 11, 2020

“When our children and grandchildren look back on 2020, I hope they see how much of it probably could have been avoided had we embraced the Bourgeois Deal rather than the Bureaucratic Deal in the face of Covid-19. A lot more people probably would have lived to tell about it. Or better yet, had vaccines been distributed earlier, they might not have a pandemic to look back on.” ~ Art Carden

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HeterosKedasticity or HeterosCedasticity, That Is the Question

– December 10, 2020

“The deviation of the real world from normal gives opportunity for improvement, if we are able to take advantage of positive deviations and minimize the harm of negative deviations. If we can do that, things don’t average out. Progress can come out of the filtering of randomness. Our worth, as individuals, comes not merely how we are similar to others, but to how we are different.” ~ Clifford F. Thies

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“We Hadn’t Really Thought Through the Economic Impacts” ~ Melinda Gates

– December 9, 2020

“The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration never had any doubt that eventually most everyone would come to see that the traditional principles of public health prevail over the previously untested and now failed policy of lockdowns.” ~Jeffrey A. Tucker

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The Biggest Janet Yellen Red Flag Is George Akerlof

– December 9, 2020

“While Yellen is surely smart in the book sense, there’s absolutely nothing remarkable about her economic knowledge. In truth, her ideology is very unoriginal, and is rooted in the hard-to-credit view that economic growth can be engineered via the forced redistribution of wealth from producers to consumers.” ~ John Tamny

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Covid Policies Have Caused Industrial Consolidation

– December 9, 2020

“Lockdowns have increased inequality, concentrated wealth, and hurt the poor in ways opponents of capitalism claim free markets do.” ~ Peter C. Earle & Fiona Harrigan

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Twelve Principles of International Trade: Part 2

– December 8, 2020

“Foreigners do not treat us ‘unfairly’ if they insist on sending to us more imports in exchange for a given amount of our exports (or, what is the same thing, if they accept fewer of our exports in exchange for a given amount of what we import from them). Accusing foreigners in such a case of treating us unfairly makes no more sense than accusing your employer who gives you a raise of treating you unfairly.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

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In Memoriam: Walter E. Williams, 1936-2020

– December 5, 2020

“Williams was a towering intellect who made the economic way of thinking come alive to generations of undergraduates, graduate students, readers, and anyone who would listen. He suffered no fools, which incidentally appears as the title of the 2014 Free to Choose Network documentary on his life and work. To adapt an African proverb, the best time to start reading Walter Williams’ work is twenty years ago. The second best time is right now.” ~ Art Carden

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You’re Not Underpaid ‒ But LeBron Is

– December 5, 2020

“The value of your work isn’t what you say it is; it’s what others say it is, and more so what they’re willing to part with to get that. Even without the particular NBA rules LeBron couldn’t stand up and say his basketball skills are worth a trillion dollars a year. That’s for others to decide ‒ team owners, managers, and fans ‒ not him.” ~ Joakim Book

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No, Keynes Did Not “Sit Out” the Debate on Eugenics

– December 4, 2020

“By politely sidestepping these issues in Keynes and other historical figures, we do a disservice to the past. Carter has unfortunately reduced Keynes’s eugenics to a subject that is best not spoken about, and on the rare occasion it is raised as Cowen’s interview did, something to be actively downplayed and dismissed.” ~ Phillip W. Magness

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I, Chaos: The Simple Anatomy of an Interventionist Snowball

– December 4, 2020

“Intervention tends to beget intervention, which tends to beget still further intervention. In the long run, we are all worse off than we would have been had we just been able to avoid getting the government involved in the first place.” ~ Art Carden

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