Wow, you have some nerve lady.
Category: Economics
It often happens in arguments with the general public that people ask for an empirical example of whatever economic (or political) principle I’m attempting to explain. In truth, it’s sometimes worse. They ask for an empirical example, but really they are appealing to authority under the guise of wanting a
I’m a little behind in my readings in The Freeman, (the Foundation for Economic Education‘s excellent magazine), so if you read it, you may already have already seen this little piece by David J. Hebert. If not I highly recommend it. It’s called Ice and Economics and although it is
Found this one posted on the blog at Liberty Conspiracy (be sure to check out the radio show!). Just too, too, too funny.
Two small examples of why New Jersey ranks 49 on the freedom scale and New York ranks 50.
It’s 1979 all over again. Well, in more ways than one. But here in the northeast, after Hurricane Sandy, there is a major shortage of gas. People wait in lines for hours only to find out that the gas ran out before they made it a few feet. Fights break
I recently met a man who told me that the state of Afghanistan was proof that a society would not spontaneously order itself towards capitalism. Now, I don’t know where he got the idea that it would, but it seems likely to me that this is a common misconception. So
A few years ago I wrote a letter to the editor of Bioscience Hypotheses, a journal in which, shortly before, I had published an article speculating on the cause of Bee Colony Collapse. One of the reasons I chose that forum for my editorial was that it seemed to me
There are quite a few so-called “libertarian” groups touting so-called “anarcho-capitalism”. To my mind this term is nothing but an oxymoron that serves to confuse people who have otherwise correct instincts. This might be because one of the apparent proponents of the idea was none other than Murray Rothbard. It’s
One of the virtues of being a generalist is the ease with which one can often detect a con. While the specialist examines the bark of a single tree, the generalist sees the forest for the trees. The generalist’s overall knowledge of surrounding area often gives him vital clues, even
My friend Richard died this year in January. Shortly after his death I submitted a paper he had written for publication in a scientific journal called Bioscience Hypotheses. The editors were interested, but they had questions. As I had contributed somewhat to Richard’s ideas, I was familiar with them and
This post is again inspired by an article from The Freeman, the magazine for the Foundation for Economic Education. In thinking about it now, I imagine that today I would disagree on some level with a great many of the articles published in the Freeman over the years. Some ideas
So, about a week ago I was checking my logs and saw someone typed in the search terms “how low can the dow go”. That sounded like panic to me. Now, a while back I told you it COULD happen, remember? Well, looking at this chart, it’s sure starting to
In the first part of this two-part series on inflation and deflation we discussed how money came to be used to facilitate trade. Metals were the best commodities for use as money because they were durable, relatively rare, and were easy to mold into identical pieces. As the wealth of
What exactly does it mean to be a “soft science”? Over the holidays I got into a discussion with a relative about just this topic. Economics, he told me, is a “soft” science, unlike physics which is a “hard” science. What exactly is the difference? The word “science” itself is