Topic: Economic Education

Twelve Principles of International Trade: Part 1

– December 3, 2020

“Although it’s possible to imagine bizarre scenarios in which a country’s rising trade deficits might be evidence of economic decline, none of these scenarios is realistic in the case of the United States. American trade deficits are evidence of American economic health, at least relative to many other countries, rather than of economic hardship.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Economic Education, Free Markets, History

Dr. Friedman Goes to South Africa

– December 3, 2020

“Milton Friedman in South Africa is a fascinating product of one of Friedman’s ventures during a controversial time. It is worth reading for anyone interested in understanding Friedman specifically or what Andrei Shleifer called ‘The Age of Milton Friedman’ more generally.” ~ Art Carden

Economic Education, Environmentalism, Government

The Hype Surrounding Environmental, Social, and Governance Investing

– December 3, 2020

“The shares of ESG companies will get wicked expensive as more and more money piles into them. At that point, with the expectation of low returns on ESG and high ones on ‘wicked’ stocks, virtue investors and ESG fund managers will have to eat palpably lower returns or creatively reclassify ‘wicked’ companies to get higher performing stocks into their portfolios, i.e., destroy the meaningful differentiation between ESG and ‘wicked’ companies once again.” ~ Robert E. Wright

Economic Education, Government, Regulation

The Great Reset: Between Conspiracy and Wishful Thinking

– December 2, 2020

“It is quite bizarre that we tend to divide the world between awful private interests and those who use glowing words. Perhaps glowing words can be aligned with some private interests too.” ~ Alberto Mingardi

Economic Education, Free Markets, Regulation

Don’t Confuse Free Markets with the Interventionist State

– December 2, 2020

“The important task for those who value personal freedom, economic liberty and the free market economy is to disabuse our fellow citizens from thinking that what we have is a fully capitalist system, and to appreciate that what critics of capitalism call for and want in the form of even more and bigger government would only magnify the corrosive trends already in play in the modern world.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

Crisis, Economic Education, Government

Communities in the Pandemic

– December 1, 2020

“Are local communities self-organizing because politics is being unduly constrained, limited in its spending capacity, and disempowered, or are they self-organizing because, in spite of consuming more than a third of GDP (in England), governments are simply lacking the flexibility and the responsiveness to deal with people’s demands, particularly when they are new and when they are changing?” ~ Alberto Mingardi

Economic Education, History, Policy

Value Is What I Say It Is

– November 30, 2020

“The disdain for private commerce pours through the pages of The Deficit Myth, but never so much so as when Kelton imagines the transition for a newly unemployed worker. Rather than ‘sort boxes at a private retailer,’ she says, the worker in her scheme will ‘perform a useful job in public service.’ Everything that’s wrong with the (left’s) modern overhaul of value theory is included in that sentence.” ~ Joakim Book

Authoritarianism, Economic Education, History

What’s Wrong With Communism?

– November 30, 2020

“Lenin famously said ‘you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.’ Alas, communist experiments have come and gone. They have left us with no omelets, only millions and millions of broken eggs.” ~ Art Carden

Economic Education, Free Markets

The Value is In the Ideas

– November 29, 2020

“Which desk and lamp recipes ‘win?’ It’s not the ones that require the most labor or the most savings. In the long run, it might not even be the ones that capture the imaginations of design aficionados. The winning recipes are the ones that get enough ‘votes’ in the form of the dollars people spend.” ~ Art Carden

Economic Education, Free Trade, Government

The Prospects for Global Trade under the New US Administration

– November 26, 2020

“At 78 years old it is generally expected that Joe Biden will be a one-term president, and this presents him with a golden opportunity to embrace reform in many areas of policy. He has been afforded the chance to leave a lasting legacy: an overhaul of the WTO is one such reform.” ~ Colin Lloyd

Classical Liberalism, Crisis, Economic Education

Tyler vs. Tyler?

– November 24, 2020

“Given that one of Tyler’s most intriguing arguments in Stubborn Attachments is that we discount the value of the future far too greatly – implying that we value the present far too much relative to the future – I believe that the 2018 Tyler Cowen would be a most intriguing, perhaps even confrontational, guest of the 2020 Tyler Cowen on Conversations with Tyler. It’s a conversation that I’d very much like to hear!” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Art and Culture, Economic Education, Free Markets

Without Permissionless Innovation, Would we Really Love Rock & Roll?

– November 24, 2020

“Even if you think the ‘Queen of Noise’ produces nothing but noise, her success in a world of permissionless innovation is a good reason to love rock & roll.” ~ Art Carden