Here’s an e-mail that John Stossel sent to lots of folks. It’s self-explanatory — and contains great news!
It’s finally here – my new Fox Business show! Fox fittingly has titled it, Stossel. It premieres Thursday at 8 p.m. It will repeat Fridays at 10 p.m., where I’ll be up against [...]
At Planet Money, I talk about why macro is just too hard and plead for honesty about the lack of science in our policy recommendations.
[...]Everything you need to know about the current state of American politics and how it affects health care is all right her in this column by Steve Chapman.
[...]Blogger extraordinaire Megan McArdle is this week’s guest on EconTalk talking about her debt and how she is escaping out from under it. We also get into the Great Depression. Of course.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent earlier today to the Boston Globe:
Barry Brodsky asserts that military conscription is “just and honorable” (Letters, Dec. 6).
Really? Forcing young men and women to fight against their will is “just”? Confiscating several years of their lives by coercing them to serve the state [...]
My and Russ’s friend Pietro Poggi-Corradini, a mathematics professor at Kansas State University, recently informed us by e-mail of his concern for green growing things:
From now on if I’ll skip the salad during a meal I will loudly proclaim that I’m happy to do so because that “will save some [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent today to the Washington Post:
Dana Milbank rightly ridicules “Progressive” Americans who mistook Barack Obama for being a messiah (”Obama the mortal,” Dec. 6). But don’t be too hard on these gullible folk. For years, their intellectual superstars (including some of your own columnists) [...]
Great news! My and Russ’s GMU colleague, Charles Rowley, has started blogging.
I encourage you regularly to read Charles’s insights here.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
RE Thursday’s White House “Jobs Summit” (”Obama Turns to Job Creation, but Warns of Limited Funds,” Dec. 4): the language is misleading.
Jobs themselves do not need to be created, for they are among the most abundant opportunities in [...]
On his blog, John Stossel alerted me to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s most recent spasm of stupid protectionist sentiments. In response to New York’s senior senator, I sent this letter to the New York Daily News:
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) is upset that Adidas will shift its manufacturing of National [...]
Here’s a wonderful essay from a year ago by 2006 Nobel Laureate economist Edmund Phelps. (HT Michael Strong) A sampling:
The other difficulty with that fashionable hypothesis [that market-generated economic growth is overrated] is that most of the alleged costs are illusory or trumped up. The idea that a well-functioning [...]
Mark Calabria asks the right questions. An excerpt:
The fact that Rep. Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Fed currently has 313 co-sponsors is a clear indication that Congress is unhappy with the Fed’s lack of transparency. Bernanke’s lobbying efforts against the Paul bill have had little traction. When it [...]
The consensus is that it’s still going to get worse before it gets better.
What fascinates me is that the American people, not being sophisticated in the use of the counterfactual and sophisticated statistical analysis are increasingly blaming Obama for the troubles of the economy. This may not be fair. But [...]
The Washington Post on the resignation of Henderson from the CEO position at GM:
GM said the Obama administration, which appointed several members to the automaker’s board, did not play a role in the decision and was only informed after it was official. The government owns 61 percent of the [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent earlier this afternoon to a reporter for CBS News:
Mr. Bob Foss, CBS Radio News
New York, NY
Dear Mr. Foss:
On today’s 1:00pm national-news radio broadcast you reported that the Senate voted to require all insurance companies “to cover mammograms and pap smears at no cost.”
The [...]
I’m a bit confused by Ed Glaeser’s column in today’s Boston Globe. It’s unclear if he blames markets per se for much of the recent financial meltdown, or, instead, blames insufficient regulation in light of the reality that Uncle Sam is always too likely to bail out too many [...]
He says in an interview:
Q: In one article, you compare a disaster that befell a mountain climbing expedition on Mt. Hood to what has happened in the financial system. Could you explain that?
That was a situation where some very experienced climbers made what many considered a rookie mistake. [...]
Virgil Storr and I were chatting just outside of my office a moment ago. I observed that (former U.S. Treasury Secretary) “Hank Paulson looks like a bad guy in a Bond flick.”
Virgil immediately replied: “He is a bad guy in a bond flick.” !!!
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Boston Globe:
You propose a tax credit for firms that hire new employees (”To boost jobs, give tax breaks to businesses that hire,” Dec. 1). Bad idea. A far better idea is to cut taxes on corporate profits.
You correctly recognize that [...]
My friend Steve Pejovich alerted me to this post over at Mark Perry’s Carpe Diem. The graph says much, but here’s Mark’s bottom-line take on these data:
Bottom Line: World GDP (real) doubled between 1969 and 1990, and has increased by another 60% since then, so that world output in [...]
Here. Excellent. An excerpt:
The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering. And, as Christopher Booker argues, this scandal is not at the margins of [...]
The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s outstanding columnist and blogger Bart Hinkle wrote today on Virginia’s quest to regulate yoga instructors — and on the valiant effort of the Institute for Justice to stop such officious interference.
Note from this passage in Hinkle’s column the unbridled arrogance of the pro-regulation crowd:
In fact, [...]
They are stealing our money. They are then wasting our money while paying themselves a nice salary. This is a Ponzi scheme. It will destroy our country. It has to stop. But there’s no sign of it stopping. Something will give. Just hard to know where and when.
Tierney gives a nice summary (HT: Maggie’s Farm) of ClimateGate. Here is the EconTalk podcast on Group Think.
It is hard to know the exact scope of what was done wrong and what is dishonest. What is clear is that there was some dishonesty, some secrecy about data [...]
The AP reports:
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., attacked the legislation as a “monstrosity” that employs “Bernie Madoff accounting, Enron accounting” as he offered the first GOP amendment. McCain’s amendment would strip out more than $400 billion in Medicare cuts to home health providers, hospitals, hospices and others – a [...]
James Hamilton thoughtfully lays out (HT: Brad DeLong) the risks from larger federal budget deficits. Superb.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Pleading for government to address today’s unemployment problem more vigorously, Paul Krugman writes that “The long-term unemployed can lose their skills, and even when the economy recovers they tend to have difficulty finding a job, because they’re regarded as [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent earlier today to the Washington Post:
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke asserts – as if it’s an incontrovertible fact – that “The Fed played a major part in arresting the [current] crisis” (”The right reform for the Fed,” Nov. 29).
First, it isn’t clear that our [...]
29 November 2009
Mr. Ben Bernanke, Chairman
Federal Reserve Board
Washington, DC
Dear Mr Bernanke:
I had to down an extra mug of coffee this morning to be certain that I read your op-ed in today’s Washington Post correctly. Sure enough, you claim to be worried about a recent House-committee vote to, [...]
By the way, interpreting the data in ways that suggest that the poor are getting richer and that consumption “inequality” is declining is not obviously ideological — as [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to Fred Hochberg, President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States — an agency charged with helping American firms export more:
Dear Mr. Hochberg:
My e-mail today brought a proud announcement from CG/LA Infrastructure LLC that you’ll speak at one of that company’s [...]
Steve Horwitz is on a roll! In this blog post, he presents Census Bureau data showing that America’s poor people continue to get richer — and are positively wealthy compared to the typical American of the early 1970s.
[...]Here’s a letter that I just sent to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman supports a “Tobin tax” as a means of reducing speculation (”Taxing the Speculators,” Nov. 27).
Bad idea. Speculators buy assets only when they predict that these assets’ prices will rise; speculators sell assets only when they predict [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent earlier today to the Wall Street Journal:
A headline in today’s edition reads “Dollar Falls Against Yen; Japan Hints at Action.” A more revealing headline would read “U.S. Goods Become Less Costly for Japanese People; Japanese Government Hints at Preventing Its Citizens from Enjoying [...]
The Atlas Foundation’s Tom Palmer works tirelessly to promote (true) liberalism and free markets around the world, especially in places where these institutions are most scarce.
You can help. I will.
[...]Until Cafe patron Annie sent me this link, I was unaware of this blog. But I very much like this blog post (which features several excellent quotations from Randy Barnett). (Thanks Annie!)
[...]Suffolk University’s Ben Powell — a GMU economics PhD — reminds us why the pilgrims had reason to be thankful: they got rid of a turkey of an economic arrangement. Here’s a selection from Ben’s short essay:
In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights. [...]
I’m delighted that Hayek’s 1973 Wincott Lecture is now available on-line. Here it is. (HT Richard Wellings of the Institute of Economic Affairs.)
Volume 1 of Hayek’s Law, Legislation, and Liberty is the single most important book that I’ve ever read. This lecture is a good introduction to [...]
Art Carden at Rhodes College is using my book, The Price of Everything, in his Econ 101 class.
Here are some very nice questions he has given his students.
If you are using the book, I would love to see what you’re using as well.
Seekingexports comments on this post:
Mr. Roberts, when you wrote “playing with our money” did you mean TARP funds or the funds from institutional investors such as government employee 401B funds (ie. U of V retirement)?
Even though I don’t think that Lehman and Bear Stearns received rescue funds I think [...]
Bebchuk, Cohen, and Spamann show that even the losers at Bear and Lehman made a killing. They were playing with our money, taxpayer money, lending it to each other, making huge short term profits and paying themselves enormous amounts along the way. The authors argue for changes in executive [...]
Here’s my latest column in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. (The 90-percent figure that I cite early on really should read 85-percent.)
[...]George Selgin’s 1997 monograph (published by the IEA of London) Less Than Zero: The Case for a Falling Price Level in a Growing Economy is now available on-line. What great news!
With confusion about money, banking, and monetary policy running rampant these days, George’s clear and compelling argument for “the [...]
Reading this editorial in today’s Baltimore Sun makes me realize that the world is full of people who believe in square circles, mighty hurricanes whose strongest winds are but gentle breezes, and (of course) cats that bark. I sent this letter in response:
You are right to decry the increasing [...]
He doesn’t like it. (HT: Paul Solman) I share Robb’s skepticism about drawing conclusions from empirical work that either ignores other factors or purports to control for them in the name of creating a “natural experiment.” Having been in the kitchen, I know how this dish gets cooked. [...]
I here plead guilty to interpreting Paul Krugman unfairly. I’ve long read a passage in this 2002 New York Times Magazine essay by Krugman as being evidence of his endorsement of the common but false belief in zero-sum economics — the belief that Joe can get richer only by [...]
In yesterday’s Washington Post, the great George Will has an excellent column — with this outstanding concluding line:
Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of everything except government. The name is environmentalism.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent few days ago to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman asserts that Beijing increases global unemployment by “siphoning much-needed demand away from the rest of the world into the pockets of artificially competitive Chinese exporters” (”World Out of Balance,” Nov. 16). This nefarious outcome [...]
I think Paul Krugman needs to get out and about a little more often. In his recent column he writes about Obama’s worries about the growing national debt:
But in a recent interview with Fox News, the president sounded diffident and nervous about his economic policy. He spoke vaguely about [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Washington Post:
Your front-page story on talented, credentialed, and underemployed Melissa Meyer should dispel the notion that today’s economic troubles are comparable to those of the Great Depression (”In recession, one road led back home,” Nov. 22).
Photos from the 1930s show [...]
On the Oppenheimer Society listserve, someone asked for recommendations of good books and articles on globalization. David Boaz offered this superb list:
•Free Trade Under Fire (2nd ed.) by Douglas Irwin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005)
An empirical verification of the positive benefits of free trade.
•Why Globalization Works by Martin [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent today to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman insists that the nearly ten trillion dollars of projected U.S. government budget deficits over the next decade is a “phantom menace” (”The Phantom Menace,” Nov. 23). The real problem, according to Mr. Krugman, is that government’s [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Bob Herbert insists that manufacturing in the U.S. is a mere shadow of its past proud self – and that this alleged decline of America’s “industrial base” is the result of too many Americans concentrating on finance (”An [...]
Conservative Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby champions the cause of “illegal” immigrants. I applaud him.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent to the Wall Street Journal:
Peter Navarro asserts that “China mops up vast sums of export dollars through sterilization efforts that are tantamount to forced saving. In the process, Chinese consumers lose significant purchasing power because of the undervalued yuan – and Americans lose millions [...]
Here.
The narrative is more important than the facts. People like the narrative because it pleases them. Not because it’s true. Truth is elusive.
But evidence and facts do matter.
So when someone says the TARP was central to preventing disaster, don’t disagree. Don’t talk about how evil and anti-democratic it was [...]
I know. This (HT: Drudge) is how “the system” works. I’m supposed to understand it. But I don’t. It’s a lousy system.
On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”
The section spends two pages [...]
In the current New Yorker, James Surowiecki is properly critical of the economic distortions introduced by taxing debt-financed income much more lightly than taxing equity-financed income.
But his policy conclusion is a non sequitur:
Given the weak state of the economy and of housing prices, a wholesale rewriting of the [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent this morning to the Washington Post:
Harold Meyerson is confused about U.S. trade with China (”A marriage made in China,” Nov. 18).
As incontrovertible evidence that American exporters and producers are harmed by U.S.-China trade, he points to the fact that, since the 1998 agreement [...]
I’m attending now the 27th annual Cato Institute Monetary Conference.
Just before the conference kicked off this morning at 9am (EST), The Economist’s Zanny Minton Beddoes suggested that I do some live blogging while here. I hadn’t thought to do that. (I’m here to moderate one of the afternoon panels.)
But, [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Washington Post:
Harold Meyerson’s discussion of U.S. trade with China is a buffet of errors (”A marriage made in China,” Nov. 18).
For example, portraying trade with China as gutting both America’s export potential and America’s manufacturing base, Meyerson fails to mention [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Wall Street Journal:
John Micetich argues that “if we add up the bailouts to all financial firms, we’re well over $1 trillion, at least 10 times more than the Fred/Fan bailout. Therefore, let’s put most of the blame where it belongs: Wall [...]
There are advantage to universal standards. The most important is economies of scale–once you learn the standard, it applies everywhere. But the disadvantages are subtle and usually much greater than the advantages.
I don’t want a single standard of health care, one standard of what’s “best.” Everyone is different and what [...]
Canadian Rondi Adamson offers her sober thoughts, in this short essay, on Canada’s health-care system. (HT Gerry Nicholls) Here’s a short snippet:
We [Canadians] would do well to not preach, in spite of Barack Obama’s assertion — during his appearance a few weeks ago on the Late Show with David [...]
In this article, I celebrate — on the occasion of his 90th birthday — the central lessons taught by Jim Buchanan (who, I have just learned, will again teach a seminar at GMU this coming Spring semester!).
A key ‘graf from my article:
Buchanan insists that we should always look [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Florida Times-Union / Jacksonville.com:
The only thing worse than the satire in Joseph Steinman’s criticism of capitalism is Mr. Steinman’s command of the facts (”Private enterprise: Far from a perfect system,” Nov. 16).
For example, it’s untrue that health-care in the U.S. [...]
Go here and vote if it moves you. The category is Best Education podcast. You can vote once a day for the next two weeks.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Columnist Paul Krugman writes that policies to promote “job sharing” are “worthy of consideration” (”Free to Lose,” Nov. 13).
Let’s start at the New York Times. I know several economists currently without jobs (and certainly without regular newspaper columns). [...]
This is the opening of my essay that I blogged on last week, “How Little We Know,” on the hopes for financial reform:
When an airplane crashes, expert investigators probe the cause of the crash. Their analysis can lead to changes in aircraft design, flight procedures, and regulations in hopes of [...]
“Saves lives, saves souls” — as wonderfully described by reader Charlie Quidnunc, who deserves a hat tip for drawing my and Russ’s attention to this further addition to the Prosperity Pool.
[...]Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times Book Review:
Paul Barrett’s review of two books on today’s financial crisis is a verbal bubble inflated by its author’s irrational exuberance for naïve conventional wisdom and his greedy reliance upon morality-play explanations (”Rational Irrationality,” Nov. 15).
The review [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman is impressed that in Germany “unemployment is only slightly higher than it was before the crisis” (”Free to Lose,” Nov. 13). Indeed, Krugman is so bedazzled by the results of Germany’s extensive labor-market interventions that he [...]
Commenting on this post, Daniel Kuehn suggests that when Paul Krugman advocates European-style labor-market restrictions and subsidies, he (Krugman) does so not as a means of increasing employment today – in the midst of a recession – but, rather, as a means of keeping employment from falling as [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
To combat unemployment, Paul Krugman supports “labor rules that discourage firing” (”Free to Lose,” Nov. 13). If a student in my Principles of Economics course ever wrote such a thing on an exam, he or she would earn [...]
Here’s something to chew on for those who trust politicians with power. (HT Fletcher Mangum)
[...]Here is my take on financial reform at The Economists Voice. Other opinions by Posner, Richardson and Acharya, Hubbard , and Calomiris, here. My piece is very Hayekian as you might guess from the title.
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Wall Street Journal:
Thomas Frank worries that, if Uncle Sam creates “One Big Regulator” for financial markets, this czar will be an industry insider who does more harm than good (”The Real Danger of ‘One Big Regulator’,” Nov. 11). Frank is [...]
Here’s a thoughtful piece on the merits and demerits of criminalizing insider trading.
Among the most common arguments made today in favor of the criminalization of insider trading (as opposed to letting corporations, in competition for capital, decide which information is and isn’t appropriate for insiders to trade on) is [...]
