Topic: Economic Theory

Prices Should Change in a Pandemic Shutdown

– April 15, 2020

After all, it’s not the sellers of oranges, toilet paper or water bottles that put the “exploited” buyers in their current predicaments. In contrast, they’re the saviors that offer them a way out.

Economic Theory

Tripartite Governance: A Guidepost for Proper Policymaking

– April 14, 2020

Public governance may be the most prominent or dominant type of governance in our lives, but we mustn’t ignore or deny that there are three main types of governance: public governance, private governance, and personal governance.

Economic Theory

Imagine a Horse Race Between Smith, Schumpeter, and Stupidity

– April 12, 2020

What we are witnessing right now is macroeconomic volatility caused by an exogenous shock due to a public health crisis combined with a policy response that has shut down the economy.

Crisis, Economic Theory

Why the Political Class Freaked Out

– April 9, 2020

Politicians, including the President, try to adjust expectations about what a “good” or “bad” outcome would look like. If the outcome is bad and lots of people die they can always come out with the “good thing we did something or this would have been much worse” excuse.

Crisis, Economic Theory

Do Economists Believe in “Magic”? No, We Believe in Markets

– April 8, 2020

The entire dismal science rests on this very, very simple insight: specialization makes our labor more productive. We could complicate this in all sorts of different ways, and that’s exactly what we do when we move from specialization to supply and demand.

Crisis, Economic Theory

The Creation of a Surveillance-and-Snitching Society

– April 1, 2020

We muddy the message when we don’t let prices change, and we tear the ties that bind us together when we create a snitching society.

Crisis, Economic Theory

It’s the Poor Who Are Suffering Most

– March 24, 2020

Let’s be very clear about what’s happening: Coronavirus is a rich man’s disease, and the economy-crushing shutdown something created by the relatively rich. The poor? They’ll be the victims of this freakout born of mass affluence.

Crisis, Economic Theory

The Top Economic Takeaway of the Coronavirus Panic

– March 16, 2020

Ultimately, our wealth consists chiefly in the ongoing willingness and ability of millions of strangers to work for us daily. Any obstacle to large numbers of people performing their daily jobs means hardship for us all.

Economic Theory

Without Individual Autonomy, There’s No Equality

– March 15, 2020

Economists usually say, “SINCE exchange is voluntary….” but the rest of the world says, “IF exchange is voluntary….” It makes a difference. To explain why, I have developed a concept of “truly voluntary” exchange in a number of writings, including one …

Economic Theory

The Economics of Thinking One Step Further

– March 13, 2020

The world is dynamic, not static; it is equilibrating and adjusting, not mechanical. The economic way of thinking teaches us that.

Crisis, Economic Theory

COVID-19 Prompts the Question: Why Value Human Life?

– March 7, 2020

Have you noticed how philosophical COVID-19 is making us? The possible presence of imminent death of so many – true or not – is causing a reassessment of fundamental issues.

Economic Theory

Warren Got Specific, and Everything Fell Apart

– March 6, 2020

Her approach took the centrist consensus of the last couple generations to a logical limit only a lawyer could find and ended up with something not that far from Sanders’ socialism.