Category Archives: Book Reports

What I’m Writing and Reading

Posted on November 11, 2013 by

Over at Ordinary Times, I’m proposing an anti-rent-seeking (or as it may be better said, and anti-rent-granting) amendment to the Constitution. The first part, defining and giving examples of rent-seeking and legalized economic privileges has received a good response, and … Continue reading →

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More Bad News from “Doing Bad by Doing Good”

Posted on September 26, 2013 by

Christopher Coyne writes; [A] study by the economist Jakob Svensson found that foreign aid, on average, is associated with an increase in corruption in the recipient country as various groups seek to maximize their shares of the windfall profits associated … Continue reading →

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Lost and Found

Posted on June 4, 2012 by

Years ago I read a book of stories about the British Foreign Office in Eastern Europe during the pre-war years. Each chapter is a self-contained humorous short story, with a memorable cast of recurring characters, poking fun at the foibles … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reports

What I’ve Been Reading

Posted on January 2, 2012 by

What have you been reading lately? During the holiday break I re-read Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West, one of the greatest, but relatively little known, American novels. In contrast with this, Huck Finn is … Continue reading →

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Washington Rules: The Advent of Semiwar

Posted on January 1, 2011 by

This is the first in a chapter-by-chapter review of Andrew J. Bacevich’s, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. For my money, this is the most important book I’ve read since Crenson and Ginsberg’s Presidential Power: Unchecked and Unbalanced. Bacevisc … Continue reading →

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