Author Archive

The Misesian Approach to Economic Laws

For my current course on Basics of Economics: Action and Exchange (where I go through my textbook Lessons for the Young Economist), I “pre-recorded”* one of the lectures because I was going to be in Chile that week and wasn’t sure my internet connection would allow for a live broadcast, which is the norm. Since […]

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Paul Krugman: The Geezers Have Had an Awful 3rd Quarter

This isn’t really substantive, but inasmuch as I am the world’s clearinghouse for Krugman Kontradictions–real or merely perceived–I couldn’t resist drawing your attention to two of his pieces: ==> “The Geezers Are All Right,” NYT op ed, June 2, 2013 ==> “The Geezers Are Not Alright,” NYT blog post, November 19, 2013 Incidentally, not only […]

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Ken Green Changes His Mind on a Carbon Tax

This was the 3rd presentation at IER’s Carbon Tax conference earlier this year. Here’s the original blog post, but below I reproduce my highlights: 2:00 – 4:00  Green explains that in 2007 he and his colleagues looked at the impact of a $15/ton carbon tax. They thought it would be a better policy than cap-and-trade, […]

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According to His Own Criterion, Paul Krugman Has Low Moral Character

In today’s post titled “What to Do When You’re Wrong,” Krugman explains why his intellectual opponents on Fed policy are not just wrong, but immoral. Here’s the summary of his case against them: Barry Ritholtz reminds us that we’ve just passed the third anniversary of the debasement-and-inflation letter — the one in which a who’s […]

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Nancy Pelosi Doesn’t Think She Said Anything Wrong About Keeping Health Plans

This is ridiculous. She sounds like Homer saying, “Now Bart, let’s not dwell on who forgot to pick up whom from school…”

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Promo for The Economics of ObamaCare

Class starts Wednesday November 20!

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Outsourcing My Krugman Kritiques

Believe it or not, I actually do not relay most of the Krugman critiques that people send my way. Very often they are of the form, “Krugman interprets X according to his Keynesian model, but that’s dumb, because really we should interpret it this other way…” I usually agree with such posts, but they won’t […]

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Noah Smith Uses Theology to Draw Political Conclusions: God Help Us

[UPDATE: I removed an analogy because it would have drawn attention away from Noah’s point. UPDATE #2: In the comments, Scott Sumner objects that I have misunderstood him. I had thought Scott, in his original post, was being tongue-in-cheek, and giving a mock benefit of the doubt to Noah, since it’s crystal clear what Noah […]

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