Economics

Archive for Economics

Tom Woods Doing the Job That Even Mexican Immigrants Wouldn’t Want

I’ve been feeling really guilty the past several months, because I asked Tom Woods for a review copy (that means a price of zero to me) of his latest book, Rollback, and I haven’t even finished it yet. (In defense of myself, I haven’t read any book this year, since I’ve been so busy, except […]

Is Keynes From Heaven or Hell?

Sorry kids–Major Freedom in particular–but I think Keynes is brilliant in Chapter 13 of the General Theory: It should be obvious that the rate of interest cannot be a return to saving or waiting as such. For if a man hoards his savings in cash, he earns no interest, though he saves just as much […]

More on Asset Privatization

At EconLib this month I have an article going into more detail about how much in (fairly) liquid assets the government owns. I was actually surprised by some of these numbers, so you might be as well. For example: International reserve assets. As of June 3, 2011, the Treasury reported international reserve assets of $144.2 […]

DeLong-Murphy Tag Team on a Dead Guy

Yeah, take that Nozick! I like Brad DeLong’s take-down (HT2 Gene Callahan). Also, while he’s stunned, David Gordon comes in with the finishing move a la Sam Konkin’s wit. I know, I know, I’m still a punk kid in the libertarian pantheon, and I have no business saying this. But I must speak out: I […]

Oh Say, You Could See

For the Keynes, Krugman, and the Crisis class, we read Say’s famous “Of the Demand or Market for Products,” from which “Say’s Law” comes. I had forgotten how awesome it was. A sample: The same principle leads to the conclusion, that the encouragement of mere consumption is no benefit to commerce; for the difficulty lies […]

NPR Podcast on PorcFest

I can’t believe I missed my chance to be on NPR… I heard this guy was walking around, but I never saw him. Incidentally, George the bacon guy’s food was awesome. But he didn’t insist on silver payment, as the podcast suggests. I paid with FRNs, and so did most other people in line, the […]

Keynes Bask

OK for my Keynes, Krugman, and the Crisis class–we still have registrations rolling in, don’t be shy!–I have just assigned Chapters 1-3, and some selections from Chapter 12, to give about a 50-page excerpt from the General Theory to convey Keynes’ diagnosis of how the “classical” economists went wrong. Now to make sure I know […]

On Using Models

From Mises’ Theory of Money and Credit (though it is from the later material, which was written much later than the original 1912 edition): “There are problems of theory full comprehension of which can be attained only with the aid of the theory of indirect exchange. To seek a solution of these problems, among which, […]