Consulting by RPM || Free Advice Blog

“Oh My Gosh You Idiots Are Afraid of a CLOCK?!”

One of the reasons I like economics is that you get inside of everybody’s head and try to explain their behavior as the outcome of rational (though perhaps gravely mistaken) choice. I also like novelists who merely describe what the various characters–even the “bad guys”–did and why, from their individual perspectives, without banging me over […]

Excel Bask

This is for a colleague who’s visiting us here at the Free Market Institute… He as data in Excel with Year in Column A, and then items of interest in B through M (or whatever). Now, at the very bottom, after the last year, he wants to have a row that returns the *year* of […]

Contra Krugman Trailer

The Wealth-Health Connection

Inefficient regulations can obviously make people poorer, but did you know they can kill? There is actually a whole literature on this. I summarize the key points in my latest IER post. An excerpt: By analyzing consumer behavior, economists can come up with rough estimates of the implied “value of a statistical life” (VSL) that […]

A Tip From Jesus’ Brother

I liked this verse so much I put it on a weekly repeat on my calendar. James 4:7: “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

Google and Game Theory

Steve Landsburg has a really neat series of posts with a game theoretic brain teaser that has an unintentional flaw. If you have the time, I encourage you to not “cheat” by reading ahead; instead try to solve them in order, just by reading Steve’s posts and not the comments: First, second, and third. Then, […]

3 Stock Market Tips From an Economist

My latest at FEE. (They picked the title mostly for irony, I think.) You guys think you’ve placed me in a neat little anti-EMH box, don’t you? And then BAM I write something like this: Suppose your brother-in-law says: “I’ve got a great stock tip! I found this company, Acme, that makes fireworks. Let’s wait […]

Hello, My Name’s Bob and I’m a Hypocrite

[EDIT: I’m trying to confine my thoughts to the narrow question of Christians taking stands on what they believe are matters of conscience, even though they are sinners according to their own value system. I am deliberately setting aside the question of what state officials should do in regards to marriage licenses. My own view […]