Economics

Archive for Economics

Potpourri

* Mario Rizzo is clearly not one of us. He writes, “Over the past two years I have been reading more than I ever dreamed about rationality in economics, especially in the standard neoclassical theory of choice. I have done this because I want to get at the root of the controversies concerning whether people’s […]

Lessons from Solyndra

I have the EconLib featured article this month. If you haven’t really been following the Solyndra story, and want to get up to speed, this is your one-stop shopping. An excerpt: My goal here is twofold: first, to summarize the key events in the Solyndra case and explain why it is a scandal and not […]

Ludwig von Mises 1, Abba Lerner 0

I am working on my article for this month’s Lara-Murphy Report. (Carlos had mentioned that he been reading Human Action lately, and noticed that Mises talks matter-of-factly about people saving via insurance policies, so I’m elaborating on that phenomenon.) I came across this passage (pp. 843-844) which made me feel dumb: In the process of […]

New Ways of Understanding the Debt Burden Dialog

Curse Dean Baker! Not only did he mislead (through the amplification by Paul Krugman) millions of people about the danger of government deficits, but then he went and posted again on the topic. This allowed me to skirt my earlier pledge to not post anything else on this. If you can stand it, over at […]

Krugman and Kuehn Take Me to the Woodshed on the 1920-1921 Depression

I have all sorts of sarcastic wise-alecky things I could say, but let me just play the straight man on this one. On Sunday Krugman had a quick post titled “Harding” in which he alluded to unnamed gnats who kept repeating that the 1920-1921 experience showed the success of austerity policies. Krugman at that time […]

Mick and Gene Discuss the Weather

GENE: It’s really nonsensical, all these people talking about the chance that it might rain during the Super Bowl. It can’t possibly rain in February, it’s too cold. It’s true, it might snow, but that’s something else entirely. MICK: I understand why you might think that, but you’re wrong. We can easily imagine atmospheric conditions […]

Krugman Almost Renders Landsburg and Me Speechless

On the issue of corporate taxation, Steve Landsburg recently declared that Krugman had rendered him “at a loss for words.” (Although I should add, Steve managed to find 543 words to put in his post.) In this post, Steve wrote: But if his point is that you must claim a share of those profits in […]

Learn the Views of Mises on Money and Banking!

Admit it: You’ve had that copy of The Theory of Money & Credit on your shelf since October 2008. When TARP went through, you thought the end was near, and you needed to go back to the ancient texts to get guidance through the storm. But then Mises started talking about “credit money” and you […]