11
May
2018
Potpourri
==> In the latest Contra Krugman, Tom and I tackle the eternal question: Is taxation theft?
==> Speaking of Krugman, Rob Bradley discusses a Resources for the Future (RFF) post that says Krugman is full of it when he breezily claims that wind and solar will produce all of our energy.
==> Although he’s inexplicably got a bunch of fans, turns out Jordan Peterson is not literally Jesus. reason breaks the story.
==> As Tho Bishop joked on Facebook, it seems the Swiss watched my recent debate with George Selgin. Speaking of which, this guy says he learned to stop worrying and now loves fractional reserves.
==> Some of you might be interested in my Twitter exchange with climate policy economist Richard Tol.
As I understand it, Tol says nobody says the correct rate is zero, because zero is a rate and nobody has convincingly argued that zero is the appropriate rate. You agree with this and say that with a discount rate of 7% there should be a subsidy.
Is this about right so far?
If so, then I would point to my previous comment where 7% is clearly not a rate we should be considering.
The Precautionary Principle would dictate a rate of zero, out of an abundance of precaution, just in case there could be a problem.
I suspect you could make an argument for the precautionary principle to defend whatever rate you wanted. Some ways to apply it are more valid than others.
This question of why a basketball player gets paid better than a teacher runs to the heart of it. There’s lots of points to consider, enough for several shows. Basketball is entertainment and fully utilizes the mass media so perhaps a million people might each pay a small amount to watch a big game. No the case with teaching because the industry is reluctant to allow that.