TweetOver at EconLog, Kevin Corcoran has an excellent post refuting a naive-person’s assertion that central planners can acquire all the knowledge they need to successfully ‘plan’ an economy simply by asking people, questionnaire-style, what they want. But there’s an additional point to be made in response to this naive-person’s assertion. The additional point is this:…
The Ultimate Knowledge Problem
The Ultimate Knowledge Problem
20 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in Austrian economics, F.A. Hayek Tags: economics of central planning
David D. Friedman – The Externality problem: Population, Climate, Pandemic
19 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, David Friedman, development economics, economic history, economics of climate change, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, history of economic thought, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, population economics, property rights, Public Choice
What should be done about the Reserve Bank?
19 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: monetary policy
Monday’s post was on the important place effective accountability must have when government agencies are given great discretionary power which – as is in the nature of any human institutions – they will at times exercise poorly. My particular focus is on the Reserve Bank, both because it is what I know best, because it […]
What should be done about the Reserve Bank?
“Progressives” introduce cease-fire bill aimed at Israel and “Occupied Palestine”
19 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
I got this Algemeiner link from reader Norm, who added: Far-left representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives are calling for a cease fire in “occupied Palestine.” These representatives seem not to understand that Gaza has been a self-governing entity since 2005–occupied by Hamas. Or, perhaps they do know this and are referring the entire […]
“Progressives” introduce cease-fire bill aimed at Israel and “Occupied Palestine”
Ireland’s Corporate Tax and the Laffer Curve
19 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and investment
About 15 years ago, I narrated a three-part series on the Laffer Curve. Here’s Part II, which looks at real-world evidence. About halfway through the video (3:15-3:55), I discuss what happened when Ireland dramatically lowered its corporate tax rate. The net result was an increase in tax revenue. But not just by a small amount. […]
Ireland’s Corporate Tax and the Laffer Curve
‘Green’ Energy’s Demand For Rare Earths Driving Wholesale Environmental Destruction
19 Oct 2023 1 Comment
in development economics, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: celebrity technologies, wind power
Solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles all critically depend upon a raft of minerals known as ‘rare earths’, as well as mountains of copper and cobalt. With the exponential increase in demand for minerals comes an exponential growth in the mountains of toxic filth left behind during mining and processing those minerals. The minerals […]
‘Green’ Energy’s Demand For Rare Earths Driving Wholesale Environmental Destruction
Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq by Rory Stewart (2007)
18 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
‘If you put my cousin on the council, I will slit his throat.’ (Typical threat from an Iraqi sheikh, Occupational Hazards, page 231) Rory Stewart Stewart (born 1973) is posh. He comes from a family of Scottish landed gentry. Like lots of poshos born into a family which helped administer the last shreds of empire, […]
Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq by Rory Stewart (2007)
Losing The Working Class.
18 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
Workers’ Power. The power of the NZ working-class reached its zenith in 1974, when 10,000 workers marched in protest at the Drivers Union leader, Bill Andersen’s, arrest – and secured his freedom. The Labour Government of Norman Kirk was frightened of the organised working-class then. Fifty years later, there’s precious little left of the private…
Losing The Working Class.
18 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of education, Karl Popper, liberalism Tags: conjecture and refutation, philosophy of science
The T-34: The Greatest Tank of WW2?
18 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: World War II
Soda Taxes Are Wrong, but Not Educating Kids is Worse
18 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
I wrote more than four years ago about a misguided soda tax in Philadelphia. This video from John Stossel updates us on what’s happened. As usual, John makes good points I’m especially amazed that he was able to get an overpaid local politician to go on camera to defend such an indefensible levy. And it […]
Soda Taxes Are Wrong, but Not Educating Kids is Worse
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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