The Curious Engineer

Econlib

2023

816 posts

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2023 816

December 2023

  1. You May Not Care About War . . .
  2. Is Protectionism a Dead Letter?
  3. DEI: Effect of Coercion to Combat Discrimination
  4. Adam Smith, Radical
  5. Tyler Cowen on Recent Fed Policy
  6. Government versus For-Profit Private Sector
  7. Air Travel and The Pillars of Economic Wisdom, Revisited
  8. Two Types of Forecasting Errors
  9. Argentina’s Offensive Against Crony Capitalism
  10. Adam Smith Discovers the Laffer Curve
  11. Nemo judex in causa sua
  12. Merry Christmas from the Henderson Household
  13. Free Gifts Do Not Exist (and Merry Christmas!)
  14. Adam Smith on Lotteries
  15. Confusing Inputs with Outputs
  16. The New McCarthyism
  17. As Russia Bombs Cities, Ukraine War Hawks Target Windows
  18. Identifying “Hidden Women” in Economics
  19. The Problem of Social Choice (in 700 Words)
  20. The Global Distribution of AI Talent
  21. Market Equilibrium versus Market Process: Kirzner’s Competition & Entrepreneurship at 50
  22. The Profound Wisdom and Humanitarianism of Adam Smith
  23. No Free Lunches, Air Travel Edition
  24. Delete Fiscal Policy from Macro
  25. The Case for Dollarization in Argentina: A Path to Economic Stability
  26. Are Dollar Stores Bad for People Who Buy From Them?
  27. When Antitrust is Weaponized
  28. My Weekly Reading
  29. Why Not Fiscal Policy?
  30. Death as a “Vital Thing” in Röpke’s A Humane Economy
  31. A Man Has Got to Do What a Man Has Got to Do
  32. FCC Kneejerk: Regulate
  33. What Kind of Driver Are You?
  34. Free Speech is Needed for All Speech
  35. Gifts are Good, Actually
  36. Methodological Individualism and the Hamas Ruler
  37. A Very Good Question
  38. Public Choice, Polycentricity, and Climate Change
  39. Residual Obligations And The Morality of Libertarianism
  40. What Should We Expect from Forward Guidance?
  41. “Let the Players Decide the Game”
  42. Money is Fungible #3241
  43. The Swedish Government Should Respect Tesla
  44. The Cultural Significance of Milei’s Inauguration
  45. Adam Smith as Moral Philosopher
  46. Were the 1960s a “Tightening Episode”?
  47. Economics Is Useful to Escape Blobby Ideas
  48. My Weekly Reading and Viewing
  49. Air Traffic Controllers with Severe Intellectual Disability?
  50. The Dread Sandwich Monopoly
  51. Karl Smith on Monetary Policy Puzzles
  52. Javier Milei’s Economic Understanding
  53. Against Ideological Certainty
  54. Productivity Puzzles
  55. The British General Election of 1923: From Repeal of the Corn Laws to the End of Free Trade
  56. Angelina Jolie, Sustainability, and Free Exchange
  57. Micromanaging Car Radios
  58. Markets and Universal Solutions
  59. How Important are “The Issues”?
  60. An EV Canary in the Coal Mine?
  61. Profits Drive Inflation If No Consumer Resistance?
  62. Drug War Propaganda
  63. A Passionate Panel on Parking. Really?
  64. Costs and the Entrepreneurial Mindset

November 2023

  1. Should Mexico Attack the USA?
  2. Critiquing Hazony – On Religion and Rationalism
  3. A Surprise About Canada’s Mac and Cheese
  4. Failure is a Feature, Not a Bug
  5. Napoleon on the Law of Demand
  6. Charlie Munger, RIP
  7. The Wittgenstein Test
  8. What Is a Card-Carrying Progressive To Do?
  9. Critiquing Hazony – Philosophy and Economics
  10. Henderson at ASU Conference this Friday
  11. Dollarization in Argentina
  12. Harrison Bergeron in the Skies
  13. The Probability of Despotism Is Not Zero
  14. Regulating Out Renters
  15. Freedom in the 50 States
  16. Would Trump Make Inflation Worse?
  17. Economics in My Early Work Life
  18. Is It True that the State Produces Nothing?
  19. Critiquing Hazony – Classifying Liberals and Conservatives
  20. Thanksgiving Thankfulness
  21. The Paradox of Profit: The Difference Between For-Profit and Non-Profit Organizations
  22. Things That Didn’t Cause the Great Depression
  23. How Much Does $100 Billion in Federal Spending Cost You?
  24. Economics in Everyday Life
  25. Politics, Anarchy: What We Know (Nearly for Sure)
  26. Socialism and the Foolishness of History
  27. Five Young Black Men Watching and Discussing Thomas Sowell
  28. Dollarization for Argentina?
  29. Hazony on Conservative Democracy
  30. Three Recommendations for Javier Milei
  31. My Weekly Reading and Viewing
  32. The Open Society and its Enemies
  33. The Danger of Fairness
  34. The Problem with the President’s AI Executive Order
  35. EV Nightmares
  36. Hazony on Individual Liberty
  37. Underappreciated Wisdom from William Niskanen
  38. Do the Banks Pay FDIC Fees?
  39. The Quantity Theory of Money in the Weimar Hyperinflation
  40. Jus in Bello
  41. Prediction Markets: The Statocrats’ Fears
  42. Hazony on Liberal and Conservative Premises
  43. Value is Subjective
  44. Libertarianism and Free Will
  45. The Economic Consequences of the Weimar Hyperinflation
  46. Hazony on Nationalism
  47. Applying Arnold Kling’s Three Languages of Politics
  48. Another Case of Sunk Cost (My Own)
  49. Perverse Tax Policy
  50. Is Your Profit My Loss?
  51. A Veterans Day Tribute to Dick Timberlake
  52. Relative Prices in China
  53. Claudia Goldin’s Nobel Prize
  54. Hyperinflation in Germany, 1921-1923
  55. The Enduring Lure of (Democratic) Socialism
  56. Chris Freiman’s Unpersuasive Case for a UBI
  57. Conservatism and Historical Empiricism
  58. Ask and You May Receive
  59. The Grasshoppers are Coming for your Savings
  60. Introducing Conservatism: A Rediscovery
  61. What In Heaven’s Name Is the Public Interest?
  62. When to Collect Social Security is a Tough Problem
  63. China’s Best Province
  64. Adam Smith on War’s Innocent Victims
  65. Reporters Don’t Write Headlines
  66. Moral Principles as a Good Strategy
  67. U.S. Petroleum Policy Remembered: Decontrol and Regret
  68. Ticketmaster and Taylor Swift
  69. Old Calabria: The Benefits of Emigration
  70. Misunderstanding Economic Profit
  71. Planned Chaos: U.S. Petroleum Policy Remembered
  72. Don’t Confuse Supply with Quantity Supplied

October 2023

  1. Grey’s Law and Universal Solutions
  2. The death of Li Keqiang
  3. Why Industrial Policy Fails
  4. Is Currency Forced into Circulation?
  5. My Weekly Reading
  6. Wealth Inequality Rocks
  7. Reflections on the Lewiston (Maine) Mass Shooting
  8. Massachusetts Cuts and Complicates Taxes
  9. Commenter Jeff on FAIT
  10. The FTC’s Confused Case Against Amazon
  11. If Gazans Were Called “Hamassians” Instead…
  12. Is Gaza an Open Air Prison?
  13. Crime and Punishment
  14. Taylor Swift Discovers Public Choice
  15. All that Competition? They’re Missing It
  16. Zombies are Zombies No Matter How Spry
  17. Valuable Student Exercises
  18. Equivocating Externalities
  19. How Information Quickly Reduced Prejudice in a For-Profit Firm
  20. Demographics are Not Japan’s Problem
  21. Prisoner’s Dilemma: A Current Application
  22. Markets and Zoning
  23. New Orleans Restaurants Under Attack
  24. Was the Quadrupling of Oil Prices Due to the Increased Price of Gold?
  25. Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Makes the Poor Pay for the Rich
  26. Don’t Predict Problems—Prevent Them
  27. Which Rulers Are More Likely to Lie?
  28. The True Story of the Oil Crisis of 1973-1974
  29. Milton Friedman on How Trade Created Peace in Middle East
  30. Vouching for Parents
  31. Blackberry : A Good Business Movie?
  32. How Claudia Goldin’s Early Innocence Probably Led to Deeper Insight
  33. Competition in the 21st Century
  34. Legalizing Weed Changes Who Bears Costs and Gets Benefits
  35. On School Grades and Price Controls
  36. Richard Clarida on What Went Wrong
  37. Hard Choices & the Conservative Mind
  38. Middle East: Some Background Reading(s)
  39. Highlights of My Weekly Reading and Viewing
  40. The Future of Innovation in the United States: Permissionless or Regulated?
  41. Other People’s Money Speeches Show the Seen and the Unseen
  42. Claudia Goldin: A Personal Appreciation
  43. Does a Small Number of Immigrants Upset the Apple Cart?
  44. Yglesias on Industrial Policy
  45. On Redefining Words
  46. Iowa Has an Amazing History on Taxes
  47. Seeking an Explanation for the Stagnation
  48. “Regulated, Mild and Peaceful” Servitude
  49. The Elasticity of Supply of Homeless People
  50. Claudia Goldin’s Nobel Prize
  51. Can We Learn From Past Thinkers?
  52. Regulation Favors the Elites
  53. A Political Ruler’s “Absolute Immunity”
  54. Hillary Clinton’s Disturbing Comments on Deprogramming and People’s Freedom
  55. Start 2
  56. Today’s Onerous is Yesterday’s Luxury
  57. Never Reason from a Quantity Change
  58. Paved with Unintended Consequences
  59. Taiwan and Montesquieu
  60. Trudeau’s New Censorship
  61. Musings on Opportunity Cost
  62. Adam Smith on Economic Plenty
  63. The Scientist as a Learned Ignoramus
  64. Some questions for Bloomberg
  65. Economics in Fiction, Catch-22 Edition
  66. Henderson on The Chile Project
  67. The Antitrust Circus of FTC v. Amazon
  68. The Zero Sum Death Spiral
  69. Highlights of My Weekly Reading and Viewing
  70. The Arbitrariness of the “Public Interest”

September 2023

  1. Henderson on Illegal Weed
  2. What’s Wrong with Macro?
  3. An Economics Lesson from the Console Wars
  4. Whatever We Are Doing is Wrong
  5. Macroeconomics at 100
  6. Zombie Welfare Functions
  7. Background for Tonight’s Republican Debate
  8. We Can’t Collect Economic Information
  9. Trustbusters in Wonderland
  10. Who Won the Caplan/Brook Debate?
  11. Beefing with Buchanan
  12. Bidenology and Mythical American Inequality
  13. Why Is Sound Money in the Economic Freedom Index?
  14. Out-of-Sample Failures
  15. Nozick: Democracy as Collective Liberty
  16. My Reflections on Cohen’s Case for Reparations
  17. Why so sad?
  18. Highlights from My Week’s Reading
  19. We’re Number 5, We’re Number 5
  20. Rizzo, Mises, and the Pain of Writing
  21. Economics is Really Hard
  22. Money Isn’t All That Matters, Redistribution Edition
  23. Socializing Risk
  24. Biden Is NOT the Country’s CEO
  25. Reevaluating the Influence of James Buchanan on Libertarian Thought
  26. Mr. Wonderful Isn’t
  27. A sub-minimum wage or no wage at all?
  28. Forgotten Lessons of Zoning Versus Markets
  29. Can supply and demand explain inflation?
  30. Alex Nowrasteh on Terrorist Entry Through the Southwest Border
  31. Reading Highlights from My Week
  32. Nationalism and Corruption
  33. Green Protectionism While the Earth Is Burning?
  34. Reducing “Tax Expenditures” Can Hurt Economic Growth
  35. Great Quarterbacks Aren’t Actually Paid that Much
  36. Henderson Response to a Particularly Weak NYT Editorial on Antitrust
  37. The challenge facing YIMBYs
  38. When Ideal Theory Leads to Substandard Theorizing
  39. Council Member Unwittingly Argues Against His Own View
  40. Why the August Jobs Report Adds Up to a Weak Economy
  41. The Large Benefits of Short-Term Health Insurance
  42. Dani Rodrik, Forerunner of Mounting Tyranny
  43. Emergent Tokyo
  44. Apple Endorses Bill to Hobble Smaller Competitors
  45. Two Rules of Thumb Regarding Reformers
  46. The Language of Dissent
  47. The real problem is nominal (wages)
  48. Bank Failures in Fragile Banking Systems
  49. Political Economy in Half a Lesson
  50. Rent Stabilization IS Rent Control
  51. Should we root for poverty?
  52. Argentina’s Liberalization
  53. Impossible to Save?
  54. Some Thoughts on SCOTUS Term Limits
  55. Murray Rothbard in the Financial Times
  56. A comment on Jordà, Singh, and Taylor
  57. Matt Stoller’s View of Motives
  58. Einav’s and Finkelstein’s Bizarre View of Libertarians
  59. Now they see the problem
  60. What Did Labor Unions Contribute?
  61. Trump Was Wrong: Sweden Did It Right
  62. In Politics, Anything Can Happen
  63. Highlights of My Week’s Reading and Viewing
  64. The confusing China debate
  65. Be an Empiricist
  66. Group Identity: Friedrich Hayek’s Scary Warning

August 2023

  1. Do we incarcerate too many or too few?
  2. The Bizarre Economics of Tax Expenditures
  3. Who really owns the United States?
  4. Economic Freedom and Virtue are Correlated
  5. A Basic Error in Rebellions, Rascals, and Revenue
  6. Non-obvious correlations
  7. The Economics of Parking, State Fair Edition
  8. Something Absurd in Anti-Discrimination Laws
  9. The Power of Gratitude
  10. Avoid trendy economics
  11. Rent Seeking and Economic Transition in Cuba
  12. Breaking Up is Hard to Do: US Monetary Policy and the World
  13. Spooner and De Jasay about Trump’s Indictement
  14. Everything is correlated
  15. Tax Exiles
  16. A Flawed Case for Centrally Planned Health Insurance
  17. “You Belong,” But To What or To Whom?
  18. Making the Unseen Seen, Minimum Wage Edition
  19. Privatization May Result in Poorer Service, and That’s Good
  20. Demographic anxiety
  21. Has Manufacturing Hollowed Out?
  22. Semantic Stop Signs, Stocks, and Flows
  23. Land Acknowledgement for Aldine Independent School District
  24. The government doesn’t feel your pain
  25. You’re Suffering? Then Suffer More
  26. The Laffer curve for incarceration
  27. James L. Buckley, RIP
  28. Vilfredo Pareto 100 Years After his Death
  29. Highlights of My Week’s Reading
  30. Show Me the Man and I’ll Find You the Crime
  31. Can You Be a Scholar Outside of Academia? Meet Phil Magness
  32. Money Isn’t All That Matters, Gender Pay Gap Edition
  33. AI control and monetary policy
  34. Thoughts of a Rich Man West of Richmond
  35. The Simple Economics of Public Toilets
  36. Did Argentina’s unemployment rate fall last night?
  37. August 15, 1971: A Day That Should Live in Infamy
  38. Fertile ground for libertarianism?
  39. The Best Global Tax Reform? Lower Taxes
  40. How do barter economies avoid inflation?
  41. Other Thoughts on the “Gender Pay Gap”
  42. Introducing Myself in 10 Books (Part 2)
  43. Can the U.S. President Affect World Oil Prices?
  44. 99 lead balloons
  45. Gender Pay Gap at the White House
  46. The Coolidge Curve
  47. Introducing Myself in 10 Books (Part 1)
  48. A tale of twin cities
  49. Oil and the Ruler’s Benevolent Omnipotence
  50. Two Ralph Raico lectures
  51. Reminiscences of Harry Watson and Macroeconomics
  52. On the Heat Wave, CBS Is Among the Worst
  53. Workers’ Lives during the Industrial Revolution
  54. Ricardo Reis on the Phillips curve
  55. A Lesson in Local Politics
  56. Justice as Fairness and Justice as Pettiness
  57. Price of College Studies Is Quite Reasonable
  58. Don’t Trade SALT for Broccoli
  59. The actual Phillips curve
  60. Cut the Growth of Federal Spending
  61. Excellent Insights into Barack Obama
  62. The new left/right axis
  63. Do They Control What You are Allowed to See?
  64. How to Teach Non-Economics
  65. On Justice and Equality of Outcomes
  66. I Miss Milton Friedman
  67. Rich like Asians, homeless like Latinos
  68. Check Your Axes

July 2023

  1. David Friedman on the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide
  2. What goes around comes around
  3. Unleashing Innovation: Entrepreneurship Beyond Boundaries
  4. Confusion May Lead to Contradictions
  5. Cochrane on nominal GDP targeting
  6. Industrial Policy Isn’t About Jobs
  7. Dictatorship: A Matter of Incentives
  8. James Otteson on Adam Smith
  9. The Wonder of Technological Improvement
  10. Leftists and trust fund kids
  11. Impressions of Winnipeg
  12. Strategic ambiguity?
  13. Wages, Benefits, and Opportunity Cost
  14. The Invisible Hand at Work
  15. Do “Clearance” Sales Deceive?
  16. Bidenomics and Illusions of Numerical Democracy
  17. Singa-Dubai
  18. What does Colombia need more: Rappi or Labor Reform?
  19. A Stock Market Hypothetical and a Banking Reality
  20. The unintended consequences of nationalism
  21. Barriers to Immigration Are Barriers to Economic Prosperity for All
  22. Was Portugal’s Experience with Drug Decriminalization So Bad?
  23. Seat Belts Save Lives?
  24. On Personal Responsibility
  25. Seven Days to Petrograd on Responsibility
  26. Monetary policy and wages
  27. Planning versus Adaptability
  28. New Inflation Numbers are a Huge Win for the Quantity Theory
  29. Purchasing Power Parity Between Canada and the United States: A Sample Point
  30. Anthropocene: Three Economic Thoughts
  31. Would drug legalization increase overdose fatalities?
  32. Kenneth Arrow’s Overrated “Impossibility Theorem”
  33. Labor Reform in Colombia Threatens Employability
  34. The Surprising Beneficiaries of American Slavery
  35. Why Planners Can’t Plan Every Detail And Why That Matters
  36. The Fed doesn’t fight inflation
  37. A great tribute to Milan Kundera
  38. Shells and Casings: A Systemic Media Problem
  39. A Skeptical Look at How Economists and Others Often Use the Term Market Failure
  40. Do sanctions work?
  41. Corporate Income Taxation
  42. With Some Economics, There Is a Good Future
  43. David Schmidtz and My Dad on Asking the Right Questions
  44. Pre Obamacare, Did Health Insurance Companies Refuse to Insure a Lot of People
  45. Density and congestion
  46. Living
  47. Climate Mitigation: Individuals Are Not Plants
  48. Is the job market “healthy”?
  49. Police Militarization and The Peltzman Effect
  50. Social Security as an Inflation-Indexed Bond
  51. State Governments Continue to Cut Income Tax Rates
  52. The reactionary impulse
  53. Beyoncinflation, Wageflation, or Stoneflation?
  54. Giving Their Due – Markets versus the Welfare State
  55. Henderson Responds to Cliff Winston
  56. Governments Don’t Regulate Prices, They Regulate Exchanges
  57. Clifford Winston Responds
  58. Has higher education been fixed?
  59. Trading Places : A Viewer’s Guide
  60. Jeff Hummel on the Huge Benefits from the American Revolution
  61. When confused, re-evaluate your model
  62. Swaim’s Lame Take on Libertarianism
  63. Forced or Forbidden Discrimination: Why Not Laissez-Faire?
  64. Cliff Winston on Judges and Courts
  65. A tale of two suburbs
  66. Problems with Mass EV Adoption

June 2023

  1. National agoraphobia
  2. Can AI Fact Check AI?
  3. Economic Models, Mental Illness, and Consistency
  4. Response to Kevin Corcoran on Moral Authority
  5. The “New Right” Illusion: Oren Cass’s Flawed Vision of Top-Down Governance and the Betrayal of Capitalism
  6. Weight gain and price gain
  7. The Public-Choice Dimension of a 2017 Tax Grab
  8. There is no solid ground in politics
  9. Military Experience and Moral Authority
  10. Right to Privacy or Right to Property
  11. Pro-Business Movies
  12. Scientists, Pundits, and the Origin of COVID-19
  13. California Legislature Requires Discrimination Against High-Income People
  14. Productivity and Work From Home: A Response to Arnold Kling
  15. DEI, Racial Categorization, and South Africa
  16. Journalistic clichés
  17. Economic Views on the Tourist Submersible Accident
  18. Risks, the Titan Submarine, and K2
  19. Was Arthur Burns a bad Fed chair?
  20. Price Controls Cause Insurance Shortage in California
  21. The Reign of Homo Politicus Perfectus
  22. The Birds and the Tees
  23. Tammy Duckworth Will Have Blood on Her Hands
  24. In Defense of Non-Compete Agreements
  25. Cowen and Piper on EA, AI, War, Peace, Pandemics, and Economics
  26. Housing and Immigration
  27. Patricia Cohen’s Mix of Truth, Falsehood, and Confusion
  28. Meaningless Political Speech and Juneteenth
  29. America’s Most Bipartisan Issue
  30. A Tribute to a Wayward Dad on Father’s Day
  31. The Unseen Costs of Intellectual Property
  32. Sellgren Great Antidote Interview with Henderson
  33. Dumb Ideas
  34. Good Bye, Silvio
  35. Is Medicare Coercing Merck?
  36. Nobody Saw a Man Descend From an Ape
  37. Debt Ceiling Fiasco Continues Costly EV Tax Credits
  38. My Obit for Robert E. Lucas Jr.
  39. Leave us alone
  40. The U.S. Tax Rate on Capital is Rising
  41. Process, Outcomes, and Economic Information
  42. Financial Problems are Endogenous
  43. The Poverty of Mushy Environmentalism
  44. Sam Peltzman on Industrial Deconcentration
  45. Constraints Must Constrain: Becker and Backwards Induction
  46. James Mackintosh’s Misunderstanding of Markets
  47. A Rising Tide Lifts Yachts and Rowboats
  48. How to “Run the Economy” is a Loaded Question
  49. I Disagree with Bob Poole on Zoning
  50. A Stunning Subsidy Graph
  51. The Wolf is Getting Closer
  52. Environmental Religion
  53. Freedom and the Limits of Intellectuals
  54. Governments Don’t Like (Poorer) Crime Victims
  55. Destructive Energy Policies in the United States and California
  56. A Target Band for Inflation?
  57. Buy Your New Dishwasher Now
  58. A Tribute to Adam Smith
  59. Robert Hetzel’s History of the Fed
  60. Elon Musk, Edward Luce, and Libertarianism
  61. Econ 101 Lessons from Highway 61 Revisited
  62. Beware of Foolproof Recession Indicators
  63. The Tragedy of the Republican Presidential Commons
  64. Are Republicans Discovering the Limits of Markets?
  65. Holcombe, Sowell, and Tim Urban’s Ladder
  66. The “Regulate the Labor Market” Act
  67. California has Money to Burn

May 2023

  1. Digital Media and the Public Goods Problem
  2. ‘Air’ Is a Cautionary Tale About ESG
  3. The Fed Must Offset Fiscal Policy
  4. The (Gist of the) Law of Demand in One Lesson
  5. Allyn Young on War and Peace
  6. Is World War III inevitable?
  7. Man’s Search for Meaning versus Ain’t It Awful?
  8. What Competition Is, And What It Is Not
  9. Grand Master of Reputation
  10. Friday night football
  11. Markets Create Some Peace Even Between Russia and Ukraine
  12. Furman and Bernanke on NGDP as an indicator
  13. Assessing Following Their Leaders
  14. Distribution versus Growth
  15. The Cost of Child Care Regulation
  16. On the uncertainty of our judgement
  17. Mutilations of the Fashionable Sort
  18. Housing is Scarce? Then Fine Those Who Provide It
  19. John Tamny’s Confusions
  20. Cochrane on rational expectations
  21. Political Competition: Real Race to the Bottom
  22. How the Quantity Theory of Money Helps Us Understand Financial Markets
  23. Sargent on Lucas
  24. Following Their Leaders : Democracy in Theory and Practice
  25. P.S. on the Leisure of Keynes’s “Grandchildren”
  26. The Scary Future Federal Debt
  27. One area where the US leads the world
  28. We Need Another George Harrison
  29. A single Fed mandate?
  30. Following Their Leaders : The Preferences of Elites
  31. A Comparative Advantage for Violence
  32. Robert Lucas’s Nobel Speech
  33. An idealistic economist
  34. Inflation Leads Americans’ Economic Pessimism
  35. Robert E. Lucas, RIP
  36. Stanley Engerman RIP
  37. Getting Back on Track (A Steph Curry Fed)
  38. Considering Sunk Costs in Decision-Making
  39. Margery Smelkinson on Natural Immunity
  40. Charley Hooper Testifies on Ivermectin
  41. Correlation, causation, and big changes
  42. Michael Spence’s Incomplete Case for Industrial Policy
  43. Following Their Leaders : Anchor and Derivative Preferences
  44. Scott Alexander is still (probably) wrong
  45. Michael Lind’s Attack on Libertarians
  46. Ted Gayer on Subsidies to Fossil Fuels
  47. A Modest Proposal to Fix Social Security
  48. Free Trade Agreements Revisited
  49. Help Argentina: End the IMF
  50. Noah Smith’s Pessimistic Vision
  51. Following Their Leaders : Instrumental and Expressive Preferences
  52. What current macro puzzle?
  53. Approve But Don’t Subsidize
  54. Harari and the Danger of Artificial Intelligence
  55. Hamilton’s Haircuts
  56. Why is demand so strong?
  57. Dan Klein on Hume on War
  58. Introducing Following Their Leaders
  59. Assume a Tesla
  60. About that 2022 “Recession”
  61. Not Very Sophisticated Thinking About Inflation
  62. American Economics Association Reaches a New Low
  63. Fresh Air
  64. Hayek’s Critique of Unlimited Democracy
  65. Why Scott Alexander is Wrong
  66. How Many of Marx’s Interim Goals Have We “Accomplished?”

April 2023

  1. The cost of economic nationalism
  2. What Does “Marginalized Group” Mean?
  3. The virtue of patience
  4. When Is Income Not Income?
  5. Jamie Dimon Is Correct: More Bank Failures Coming
  6. Hayek on Benefits of Competition and the Optimal Size of Firms
  7. Should Russia Be Protected Against Imports?
  8. Is the yield curve anticipating a recession?
  9. Coasean economics in Irvine
  10. John Raisian, RIP
  11. Musing on Condorcet’s Paradox
  12. Friedrich Hayek on Industrial Organization, Competition, and Monopoly
  13. Condemning the Profit Motive: Part 4
  14. Taxing Higher Earners and Subsidizing Lower Earners Would Reduce Inequality
  15. Rising prices and falling output
  16. Some Questions on the Intriguing Twentieth Century
  17. We’re Number Two; We’re Number Two
  18. ESG is Bad for a Company’s Share Value
  19. MMTers would fight inflation with fiscal austerity
  20. Leftists and liars
  21. Let Teenagers Work
  22. Risk, Responsibility, and Liberalism
  23. Heart-breaking Yet Inspiring Story on Chinese Asylum Seekers
  24. Millionaires prefer . . .
  25. Condemning the Profit Motive: Part 3
  26. Hayek on “You Didn’t Build That”
  27. Lessons from Learnerville: Permission versus Prohibition
  28. A Socialist Judge Is a Contradiction in Terms
  29. The Fed as social psychologist
  30. The Long Run is Short in Norway
  31. On a pursuit of knowledge…
  32. Wisdom from Hayek
  33. The cost of giving in to blackmail
  34. Condemning the Profit Motive: Part 2
  35. The Significance of Botched Industrial Revolutions
  36. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny Have A Lot To Learn From the Tooth Fairy
  37. The Connection Between “Air” and ESG
  38. Taiwan, the ROC, and Super Bowl XXXII
  39. Condemning the Profit Motive
  40. Greenspan on NGDP targeting
  41. How Valuable is Current Event Reporting? The Case of Vietnam
  42. Call the Midwife Confronts Intrusive Government
  43. Shen Yun and Advocacy
  44. The COVID Emergency Powers Are Over
  45. Diversity and Transgenderism in School Athletics
  46. COVID and Tradeoffs
  47. Profit margins and inflation
  48. Seeing the Invisible Hand
  49. Cuba: A Monetary Phenomenon
  50. Progress on the Southern Border; Yes, Really
  51. Who’s to Blame for Excessive Profits?
  52. Why We Should Reform Medicare and Social Security in the Next Few Years
  53. Alternative Approaches to Monetary Policy
  54. Ezra Klein and Everything Bagels
  55. How I Savings Bonds Work
  56. You Can’t Say That; I Can
  57. The Rule of Law and the Proliferation of Laws
  58. Using Opportunity Cost
  59. FDIC and small banks
  60. Henderson Review of Deborah Birx’s Silent Invasion
  61. Am I a “liquidationist”?
  62. Stewards of the Earth for Whom? And Theological Musings
  63. I’ve Changed My Mind

March 2023

  1. Tolstoy on Written and Unwritten Rules
  2. Josh Hendrickson on the (other) alignment problem
  3. Which is Better, More or Fewer People?
  4. Not enough housing? Let the market in.
  5. Incentives and Marriage
  6. Yellen: Sanctions Kill Iranians and Don’t Work So Let’s Impose More
  7. Newsom Pulls a Nixon
  8. The return of industrial policies
  9. More Wisdom from Thomas Sowell
  10. The Story of Ray Epps and the Mob
  11. The Worst of the Biden Tax Increases
  12. How Milton Friedman Responded to Some Hostile Audience Members
  13. Do banks create money?
  14. Are You Getting Gouged at the Marina?
  15. Where to start reading about women in the classical liberal tradition?
  16. The 1619 Project on Hulu Vindicates Capitalism
  17. A tale of two banks
  18. Inconvenient View, Free Press Edition
  19. Wisdom from Thomas Sowell
  20. Who Deserves Student Loan Forgiveness?
  21. In Praise of Electricity
  22. The bigger bailout
  23. Is Inflation High? Not According to the Producer Price Index
  24. Prosecution of War Crimes: A Sign of Civilization
  25. Further Thoughts on Silicon Valley Bank
  26. Did the Fed cause the banking crisis?
  27. Mont Pèlerin 1947 and Germany’s Economy
  28. Electricity Hell, Part Deux
  29. Lyn Alden on Bank Safety
  30. What’s in a Name? Silicon Valley Bank and Who Should Bear the Risk
  31. Subjective Self-Worth & Division of Emotional Labor
  32. Is the Future of America Related to Paris Garbage?
  33. On the Use and Misuse of Evolved Order
  34. Mario Vargas Llosa’s classical liberalism
  35. Bailing Out SVB Was a Really Bad Idea
  36. - Econlib
  37. The wrong way to think about moral hazard
  38. Choosing Among Lemons
  39. Forward to the Past: US Regulators Top European Ones
  40. Get Your New Washing Machine Before Biden Makes Them Illegal
  41. What Should Economists Do? Price Theory or Microeconomics?
  42. Three cheers for Michelle Yeoh
  43. Time inconsistency in bank regulation
  44. Intellectual Property Rights Get More Complex—Again
  45. Promises, promises
  46. Usefulness of a Non-Lying Strategy: Two Examples
  47. The Economics of Stock Buybacks
  48. “Bank management must be investigated”
  49. India Must Keep Its Faith in Nuclear Power
  50. Budget: The Financial Times ‘s Sloppiness
  51. State Legislatures Have Reined in Public Health Bureaucracies
  52. Silver linings from inflation?
  53. Canada’s Budget Officer Admits the Truth About Global Warming’s Impact
  54. The Most Troubling in Mr. Murdoch’s Deposition
  55. Strange rebels
  56. Fairy Tales and Perfect Markets
  57. The 1619 Project’s Tooth Fairy Economics
  58. Biography of Mancur Olson is Now Online
  59. QE and low inflation are not alternatives
  60. Silly Celebrity Lawsuits
  61. Jeff Sonnenfeld’s Bombshell About the Russian Economy
  62. Is the State Discriminatory by Definition?
  63. Antifragile children
  64. Globalization and Its Discontents
  65. Fine for parking?
  66. Stick Shift or Automatic: Subjective Preferences
  67. Optimism and Ethics in The Calculus of Consent
  68. D. McCloskey’s Passionate Defense of Reason
  69. The Latest on Ivermectin
  70. Uncomfortable truths

February 2023

  1. Electricity Hell
  2. Bruno Leoni and libertarianism
  3. When Does Insurance Make Sense?
  4. Did Deregulation Lead to More Railroad Accidents?
  5. The southwestern US has plenty of water
  6. My March 6 Speech in Austin
  7. Britain’s National Health Service is in Critical Condition
  8. Ratting on a Brewer of Non-Water-Tasting Beer?
  9. Getting Property Right(s)
  10. 20 States Have Flat Income Tax Rates
  11. Man Is an Animal Who Says “I”, and Trades
  12. Poverty is crowded
  13. Is It Wrong to Make Money by Helping Others?
  14. Together, My People!
  15. Some thoughts on progress, freedom, and happiness
  16. Oxfam: “Billionaire-Busting” for Fun and Profit
  17. Decentralization is good business.
  18. Leoni, legislation and representation
  19. The 1619 Project on Hulu Vindicates Capitalism
  20. The internal contradictions of progressivism
  21. Larry Summers’s Insight and Misunderstanding
  22. Hayek’s Volunteers in Ukraine
  23. Credit Card Late Fees
  24. Arms are fungible
  25. Immigration and Trade Are Key to Thriving Economies
  26. The Universal Paradigm of Limited Resources
  27. How Much is U.S. Aid to Ukraine Costing You?
  28. Policy Failure During the Great Depression
  29. John Jasinski’s Sunk Cost Fallacy
  30. Some Occupational Licensing Progress at State Level
  31. Do elections have consequences?
  32. A Personal Reflection on a Half Century of Economic Progress
  33. The Market, Regulation’s Best Friend
  34. Economic Freedom: Breaking the Culture of Welfare Dependency
  35. Correlation and causation
  36. #ReadWithMe: Power Without Knowledge : Critiquing the Critique
  37. Bruno Leoni and Judge Made Law
  38. Sasha Zbrozek’s Brazen Plan
  39. Did I Make an Anarcho-Capitalist out of ChatGPT?
  40. What the Peltzman Effect Is and Isn’t
  41. Dutch housing shortage (TLDR)
  42. Argentina’s Comeback?
  43. Damar Hamlin and Sam Peltzman: Where Football Meets Economics
  44. Natural resources are overrated
  45. Taxes, Tax Cuts, and Economic Growth
  46. Contra-Capitalism and the Failure of FTX
  47. Now is the winter of our discontent…
  48. Misappropriating the FTX Scandal
  49. Taxing Wealth Is Taxing Work
  50. Nationalism is a negative sum game
  51. #ReadWithMe: Power Without Knowledge Part 9: What Friedman Gets Right
  52. ChatGPT and Economic Planning
  53. Is Californian Housing Policy a Form of Central Planning?
  54. Inconvenient views
  55. The Protectionist Beauty of Trade Embargoes
  56. Dear classical liberal friends, please read Alessandro Manzoni.
  57. Did Jobs Increase in January?
  58. Thaumaturgic Politicians
  59. Olivier Blanchard’s Response
  60. Our Virtual Reading Group on Bruno Leoni
  61. A Chat on supply and demand
  62. Supply vs Quantity Supplied: Housing Edition
  63. Sunk Costs and the Tuck Rule
  64. Charity Isn’t an Option with Socialism
  65. Would More Immigration of Workers Reduce Inflation?
  66. About that employment-population ratio
  67. Saying No (Again) to Wage and Price Controls
  68. (Almost) nobody gets macro
  69. The Victimized Consumer
  70. Immigrants Use Less Welfare Than Native-Born Americans
  71. Marx and Exploitation
  72. #ReadWithMe: Power Without Knowledge Part 8: Exitocracy

January 2023

  1. Fortunately, this isn’t the Volcker disinflation
  2. Was Schindler Unimportant?
  3. What if new housing does not reduce housing prices?
  4. Political Mythology at the California Bar
  5. Tradeoffs Are Omnipresent, Even With Covid
  6. Higher California Gas Prices Due to Taxes and Regulation
  7. Update your priors
  8. The Economics of Self-Improvement
  9. #ReadWithMe: Power Without Knowledge Part 7: Friedman on Economists
  10. ChatGPT on High Marginal Tax Rates in the Style of the King James Bible
  11. Time for Some Soul Searching
  12. Renewable versus Non-Renewable: The Difference Doesn’t Matter
  13. Well-written Constitutions Matter
  14. Burning the Koran
  15. The Costs and Benefits of Peer Review
  16. If things are going well
  17. #ReadWithMe: Power Without Knowledge 6: Problems with Epistocracy
  18. Good News on Federal Budget from Robert Kuttner
  19. Feudalism in America
  20. Don’t Redevelop the Slumdog Millionaire Slum
  21. Lobsterman versus Whalers
  22. Zoning and “malinvestment”
  23. Free Trade in Africa: The ‘Why’ is inseparable from the ‘How’
  24. A Million Here, A Million There
  25. Should we become entangled with our adversaries?
  26. #ReadWithMe: Power Without Knowledge 5: Ideational Heterogeneity
  27. Privatize the Skies
  28. Sunk Costs and a Trip to CVS Pharmacy
  29. On reconsideration, Arthur Burns was still a bad Fed chair
  30. Paul Johnson, the last of his kind.
  31. How Threatening are Communist Farmers?
  32. A Very Short Reflection on Pacifism
  33. #ReadWithMe: Power Without Knowledge 4: Knowledge and Interpretation
  34. Henderson on the John Batchelor Show
  35. Can Demand “Self-Destruct”?
  36. How to succeed without really trying
  37. The “True Remedy” for Slavery
  38. A 5.5% hit from Brexit? Not so fast
  39. The Need for Heroes and Heroism
  40. My 2021 mistake
  41. The Right’s Unnecessary Civil War
  42. At Least Four Reasons to Learn Economics
  43. Does Higher Pay to Legislators Lead to Better Governance?
  44. Good news on inflation
  45. A Sad, Sad Ehrlich Story
  46. #ReadWithMe: Power Without Knowledge 3: Naïve Realism (cont.)
  47. The Decline of Growth
  48. The Everyday Miracle of the Market, #13,914
  49. Sustainable Development Hoops in Business Schools
  50. Is a Mandate Simply a Suggestion?
  51. Mark Perry’s Heroic Lone-Wolf Fight for Civil Rights
  52. Nationalism is Bad for Your Health
  53. #ReadWithMe: Power Without Knowledge 2: Naïve Realism
  54. Reputation Bubbles, Crime, and the EMH
  55. Technology and Arbitration: New Trends in Law
  56. Martin Shkreli’s Observations on the Criminal Justice System
  57. Some UFO Political Economy
  58. Is Rapid Job Growth a Good Thing?
  59. The Ugly Face of Nationalism
  60. The Southwest Meltdown
  61. #ReadWithMe: Jeffrey Friedman’s Power Without Knowledge
  62. Jeff Hummel on the Wealth of Slaves and Slave Owners
  63. Garett Jones on Culture and Migration
  64. Bryan Caplan’s Defective Demarcation of Libertarians on COVID
  65. #ReadWithMe: Saint-Exupéry’s Flight to Arras , Part 2
  66. The Social Contract in The Reason of Rules
  67. Jeff Hummel on the Postwar Southern Economy
  68. Minor changes with major effects
  69. Ben McCallum RIP
  70. Bennett McCallum, RIP
  71. Generalizing the Lesson
  72. Tradition or Change as Wish for 2023 (and Beyond)

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