Consulting by RPM || Free Advice Blog

Potpourri

==> Oren Cass says climate alarmists are the real science deniers.

==> Excellent advice from Jordan Peterson for all of you super-intellectuals.

==> A lot of people have wondered if the mechanism by which expanded ACA (Medicaid) coverage has been correlated with mortality, is through opioid addiction. This guy thinks it’s a tenuous link.

==> A young Milton Friedman apparently assigned readings from Mises and Hayek in his class on business cycles.

==> In Contra Krugman episode 95, we talk about the history of economic thought. Plus: Easter egg at the end.

==> Speaking of the history of economic thought, I chime in concerning Rick Perry and Say’s Law. An excerpt:

But that’s not (of course) what J.B. Say was claiming. Look, if we are going to be uncharitable, I can do the opposite trick and mock all the people who said Perry had confused supply and demand. All the people who argued, “No Perry, the real rule is that consumers have to demand a product and then business will supply it,” are equally ignorant. After all, I hereby announce my willingness to spend up to $10,000 on a vacation to Mars. There’s my demand, entrepreneurs. Now where’s the supply of that service? Hmm, so much for Keynesian demand-side explanations…

Of course, I’m being tongue-in-cheek. There is truth to the proposition that “demand creates supply” if we interpret it charitably. But on the other hand, there is truth to the proposition that “supply creates demand” if we interpret it charitably. And a more sophisticated explanation would say that supply and demand interact.

To sum up, what J.B. Say actually wrote about the “law of markets” was quite sophisticated, and it would be very refreshing if today’s pundits and policymakers took 20 minutes to review his arguments. Say never wrote “supply creates its own demand,” and he never endorsed the obviously false proposition that a business putting out any product whatsoever will automatically find buyers.