
Cleaver institutional criticism of socialists
06 May 2019 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, law and economics, Marxist economics, Public Choice Tags: The fatal conceit
How data drives Uber’s efficient but controversial business model
06 May 2019 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, entrepreneurship, gender, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, politics - USA, transport economics Tags: compensating differences
Caturday felid trifecta: Scottish man cycles around the world with a rescue kitten; the fate of Julian Assange’s cat; mouse pwns cat;
05 May 2019 Leave a comment
Bored Panda has a heartwarming story of a Scottish man who, cycling around the world, came upon a stray tabby (click on screenshot). The rest is history.
This three-minute video, embedded in a tweet, tells the tale:
Some photos and text from the article:
In September 2018, Dean Nicholson had one goal – to cycle across the globe solo – and he began his long journey riding from his hometown Dunbar, Scotland. The 31-year-old Scottish traveler was tired from his nine-to-five job as a welder so he wanted to change his lifestyle and see the world from a bicycle seat.
The trip went great as he traveled south, passing through eight different countries and sharing his wild adventures online. But when he was crossing the Bosnian border into Montenegro, his plans…
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Andrew Sullivan sees Joe Biden as the most viable Democratic candidate
05 May 2019 Leave a comment
In his latest weekly “Interesting Times” column in New York Magazine, Andrew Sullivan lays out why he thinks Joe Biden might be the best candidate to beat Trump in November, 2020. I think I agree with him, though it’s certainly early days. Some Leftists, though, are saying we need a woman candidate or a minority candidate. Even Pete Buttigieg, who’s openly gay and married to another man, has been dissed by some Leftists for being “just another white male.”
My own view is that it’s far more important to get rid of Trump than to run a candidate who isn’t the strongest one we have (that could, of course, be a member of a minority who isn’t gay). Right now Biden is the strongest candidate, at least according to the polls, and his numbers run far above those of the other contenders. And I don’t see him as “too…
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A History Lesson: Comparing Socialist East Germany vs Capitalist West Germany
04 May 2019 Leave a comment
Donald Trump is an incoherent mix of good policies and bad policies.
Some of his potential 2020 opponents, by contrast, are coherent but crazy.
And economic craziness exists in other nations as well.
In a column for the New York Times, Jochen Bittner writes about how a rising star of Germany’s Social Democrat Party wants the type of socialism that made the former East Germany an economic failure.
Socialism, the idea that workers’ needs are best met by the collectivization of the means of production… A system in
which factories, banks and even housing were nationalized required a planned economy, as a substitute for capitalist competition. Central planning, however, proved unable to meet people’s individual demands… Eventually, the entire system collapsed; as it did everywhere else, socialism in Germany failed. Which is why it is strange, in 2019, to see socialism coming back into German mainstream politics.
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Guardian falsely claims Palestinians were ethnically “cleansed” from Jaffa
03 May 2019 Leave a comment
TheGuardian today published a review by anti-Israelwriter Ben Ehrenreich of a book called Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel‘ by Andrew Ross.
Ehrenreich’s review – which naturally avoids any semblance of balance or nuance and toes the desired Guardian narrative of Zionist original sin – includes the following claim:
[Jews] constructed a brand new modernist city distinct – and segregated – from its ancient neighbour, Palestinian Jaffa, which was built of weathered stone. In 1948, Jaffa would be cleansed of 97% of its Arab population
The word “cleansed” of course would suggest to most readers that 97% of Palestinians were expelled or in some way forced out by Israeli forces that year – a claim totally at odds with the historical record. As CAMERA, and commentator Dr. Petra Marquardt-Bigman, recently demonstrated in response to a NY Times article, the overwhelming majority of Jaffa’s Arab…
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Climate Change: What Do Scientists Say?
03 May 2019 1 Comment
Climate change is an urgent topic of discussion among politicians, journalists and celebrities. But what do scientists say about climate change? Does the data validate those who say humans are causing the earth to catastrophically warm? In this PragerU video, MIT atmospheric physicist and one of the world’s leading climatologists, Richard Lindzen, summarizes the science behind climate change.
Introduction to Microeconomics (Lecture 9: Monopoly and Competition) Murray N. Rothbard
03 May 2019 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of regulation, law and economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: antitrust economics, competition law
Williams College administration expresses support for segregated housing
03 May 2019 Leave a comment
Not long ago I wrote about how both a group of students and the student newspaper at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts are pushing to get “affinity housing” for students (a euphemism for segregated housing). The activist students, grouped together under the rubric of CARENow, have an Instagram site with many of their thoughts and demands. On that site, as well as at this link, appears a list of demands from CARENow addressed to the Trustees of the College (there is also a letter to the President of Williams, Maud Mandel, demanding her response by tomorrow at 5 p.m.)
One of the demands is for segregated housing: housing segregated not just by race, but by sexuality and other “minority characteristics”:
3. Improve community spaces and establish affinity housing for Black, queer, and all other minoritized students.
“Minoritized” is a new word that was coined to emphasize deliberate oppression rather…
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Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 6 of transcript and video)
02 May 2019 Leave a comment
Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are not present. This is a seven part series.
Created Equal [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)
(Laughter)
PIVEN: If you look at the leadership of the black __
(Applause)
FRIEDMAN: But I want to go back to the __
MCKENZIE: Yeah.
FRIEDMAN: __ I want to carry it back to an earlier point. Number one, there’s no question but what equality of results, if it comes about through a framework of freedom, is a desirable result. Number two, I argue in the film I’ve argued here that in point of fact you get greater equality of actual results by a system under which people are free to achieve unequal…
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How Mrs Thatcher smashed the Keynesian consensus
02 May 2019 1 Comment
Apr 9th 2013, 14:13 by G.I. | WASHINGTON, D.C.
[Greg Ip] In March 1981, 364 eminent British economists published a letter to Margaret Thatcher in The Times condemning her plans to hike taxes even as her monetarist attack on inflation plunged the economy ever deeper into recession. The signatories wrote:
There is no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence for the Government’s belief that by deflating demand they will bring inflation permanently under control and thereby induce an automatic recovery in output and employment … [P]resent politics will deepen the depression, erode the industrial base of our economy and threaten its social and political stability.
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FRIEDMAN FRIDAY Listing of transcripts and videos of “Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave on www.theDailyHatch.org
01 May 2019 Leave a comment
In the last few years the number of people receiving Food Stamps has skyrocketed. President Obama has not cut any federal welfare programs but has increased them, and he has used class warfare over and over the last few months and according to him equality at the finish line is the equality that we should all be talking about. However, socialism has never worked and it has always killed incentive to produce more. Milton Friedman shows in this film series below how so many people get caught in the “Welfare Trap.” Friedman also gives a great solution to this problem in the “negative income tax.” I am glad that I had the chance to be studying his work for over 30 years now.
In 1980 when I first sat down and read the book “Free to Choose” I was involved in Ronald Reagan’s campaign for president and excited about the race. Milton Friedman’s books…
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