Monthly Archives: October 2011
Stopping to Smell the Roses Creates Income Inequality
From Tyler Cowen, The funny thing is this: For years, many cultural critics in and of the United States have been telling us that Americans should behave more like threshold earners. We should be less harried, more interested in nurturing … Continue reading
Reason to Be Skeptical About Stimulus
From Econtalk.org Valerie Ramey of the University of California, San Diego … finds a multiplier between .8 and 1.2. (A multiplier of 1 means that GDP goes up by the amount of spending–there is neither stimulus nor crowding out.) She … Continue reading
High Income Households Don’t Just Earn More, They Work More
From Mark Perry, here is an interesting graphic on what factors underlie household income inequality. It’s not just that higher income households have higher income earners, although that’s part of it, too. They also have more workers per household than … Continue reading
Awesomely Bad Herman Cain Ad
This is paid for by the Friends of Herman Cain. As the old saying goes, with friends like that…
Occupy Wall Street, and Keep Occupying It
I’m not in sympathy with the OWS folks, but… Recently I saw on a blog someone more or less obliquely criticizing those who applauded the Citizens United decision that struck down limits on independent campaign spending and applaud the crackdowns … Continue reading
Tunisian Elections
From Foreign Policy Magazine’s morning email briefing. On Sunday, millions of Tunisians cast votes for a 217-seat assembly that will re-write the constitution, appoint an interim government, and set dates for parliamentary and presidential elections. Yesterday’s vote is widely seen … Continue reading
Spontaneous Order
This is the type of thing that makes me believe a more libertarian society is possible, despite–or perhaps because of–how small the scale is. It’s also the type of thing that reveals my own professional hazard, seeing political lessons in … Continue reading
Corrupting Students
Several years ago I had a student who wanted to do an independent study, and knowing he was very interested in political theory, I had him read some Hayek. He wasn’t that impressed. Today he happened to be in town … Continue reading
The Never-Wrong Method for Predicting Presidential Elections?
There’s been a little bit of attention given to a political science prof, Allan Lichtman, who’s correctly predicted each presidential election from 1984 through 2008. U.S. News called him the never-wrong pundit. So what’s his methodology?
Is Student Loan Debt Unfair?
Heard on NPR tonight, from an Occupy Wall Street protestor: It’s unfair that someone has to graduate from college with so much debt, and then not even have a job. I’m sympathetic. I dropped out of college, and with enough … Continue reading
