By now it should be clear that you’ll be most comfortable with my arguments if you fully accept yourself as a fitness-flaunting consumer narcissist who has been deluded, throughout your whole life, into irrational spending habits by advertising euphemisms and peer pressure. In other words, you’ll probably feel uneasy for much of the time you’re [...]
Category Archives: Economics
≡Marshmallows and time preference
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
You probably recall Jonah Lehrer’s New Yorker article about the kids who were told not to eat the marshmallow. Those who were able to hold out were better behaved, higher achievers later in life. Low delayers, the children who rang the bell quickly, seemed more likely to have behavioral problems, both in school and at [...]
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Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Michael Lewis writes about Iceland and the recent financial meltdown. Man, I’d love to go back there. [via marginal revolution]
≡A Theory of Capitalism & Socialism (review: 4.5/5)
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The first book by Hans-Hermann Hoppe that I read was the most excellent Democracy: The God That Failed. In the introduction to that book, Hoppe talks about competing social theories and, in face of conflicting arguments about society or politics or economics, how we can decide between them: The data of history are logically compatible [...]
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Sunday, March 1, 2009
Tax rates of the rich and poor: Lowest quintile: 4.3 percent Second quintile: 9.9 percent Middle quintile: 14.2 percent Fourth quintile: 17.4 percent Percentiles 81-90: 20.3 percent Percentiles 91-95: 22.4 percent Percentiles 96-99: 25.7 percent Percentiles 99.0-99.5: 29.7 percent Percentiles 99.5-99.9: 31.2 percent Percentiles 99.9-99.99: 32.1 percent Top 0.01 Percentile: 31.5 percent
≡Crisis & Leviathan (review: 5/5)
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
I had been meaning to read Robert Higgs‚Äô book for years and I’m very glad I got to it. And I’ve been sitting on my review for a while because I always fear sounding like a shrill, libertarian paranoid. Crisis & Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government explores the past century of [...]
≡Crisis & Leviathan (review: 5/5)
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
I had been meaning to read Robert Higgs’ book for years and I’m very glad I got to it. And I’ve been sitting on my review for a while because I always fear sounding like a shrill, libertarian paranoid. Crisis & Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government explores the past century of [...]
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Monday, November 17, 2008
A map of the world showing the most recent piracy incidents at sea. The hottest spot is the Gulf of Arden, between Yemen and Somalia (surprised?). The next worst are the West African coast and the areas around Singapore.
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Sunday, November 16, 2008
Advice from Hal Varian’s monograph, How to Build an Economic Model in Your Spare Time [pdf], most of which applies to things not related to economics: Look for ideas in the world, not in the journals. First make your model as simple as possible, then generalize it. Look at the literature later, not sooner. Model [...]
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Thursday, October 23, 2008
Nigel Holmes and Good magazine partnered to make It’s the Economy, Stupid!, an infodesigny look at the American economy of the past 90-ish years.
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Thursday, July 31, 2008
Against Intellectual Property is a worthwhile paper summarizing IP law, some libertarian arguments for and against, and why IP can’t be justified.
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Monday, June 16, 2008
Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other “territorial markers” not only get mad when someone cuts in their lane or is slow to respond to a changed traffic light, but they are far more likely than those who do not personalize their cars to use their vehicles to express [...]
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Monday, March 3, 2008
In my neighborhood, two areas have a 1000% difference in household income levels. They’re barely a mile apart. I think I subconsciously intuited the differences while out on my runs, but seeing the numbers mapped like that is still pretty amazing.
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Monday, February 25, 2008
The Story of Stuff, a big-picture overview of consumption. The animation is surprisingly good at times and there’s some clever sound, too (shaky economics and eco-paranoia aside). “You cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely.”
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Monday, February 11, 2008
An economic perspective on long-distance relationships. In addition to the financial side, economist Tyler Cowen says “There’s also the problem of pressure. You get on a flight or you drive for a few hours, and then it’s like, ‘Gee, we need to have a lot of fun right now.’ You don’t get to experience much [...]
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Thursday, January 10, 2008
“There are only two kinds of reform that have any chance of actually reducing total expenditure on presidential elections. The first is to reduce the value of the presidency itself… The second is to reduce the uncertainty about who’s going to win.” I vote for the former.
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Thursday, August 2, 2007
Here’s an analysis of the economy of Second Life. Rapid, artificial inflation of the Linden dollar means a recession is due at some point. It’s hard to predict when they’ll reach it, but it seems pretty much unavoidable.
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Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Khoi Vinh posted a brief interview with Stephen Coles, one of the fellows who worked on the massive reference, FontBook.
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Monday, July 30, 2007
Mises University is happening this week at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Tune in to the webcasts for some of the best economics learnin’ you’ll find anywhere.
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