All Posts

Archive for All Posts

Horwitz on the 1920-1921 Depression

I’ve actually been working this week–my psyche has yet to adjust to the discomfort–and somehow this post by Steve Horwitz slipped through the cracks. For non-Austrian readers, some quick context: (1) Many, perhaps most, economists today would say something like, “We know that the Fed made a terrible mistake in the early 1930s, by standing […]

Tom Woods and Doug Casey on PBS (!) Debate: Chocolate Anarchy or Vanilla Anarchy?

Wow, I finally got around to watching the below video that Tom posted a few days ago. You know how normally, if you watch a political discussion on TV the spectrum of the debate is, “Should we steal 50% of taxpayers’ money, or just 48%?” Well a similar thing happened on this program, except the […]

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (Citizens’ Money)

More fun tax facts: Massachusetts also has a tax on marijuana, but it has yet to collect any revenue from it. On the other hand, in Fiscal Year 2008, the state made almost $39 million from unredeemed deposits on bottles. See pages 26-27 of this pdf.

States Already Taxing Marijuana

During my research for a PRI paper on state tax policies, I came across this interesting nugget (see page 13 of this pdf): CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES TAXA tax is levied on marijuana and controlled substances which creates an economic burden on drug dealers. Payment of the tax is indicated by the affixing of stamps to the […]

Don’t Tell Matt Yglesias, But I Don’t Understand the Pending Health Care Legislation

Matt Yglesias is astounded at the ignorance of Mary Landrieu, Democratic senator from Louisiana, because she said, “I’m not for a government-run, national, taxpayer-subsidized plan, and never will be.” Yglesias sets her straight: The larger issue here, I think, is that unlike these programs the “public option” wouldn’t be a taxpayer-subsidized program. It would be […]

Does Austrian Economics Just Need a Name Change?

For a while I’ve thought Austrian economics just needs a new name. Arnold Kling got way more thoughtful reaction to his “recalculation argument” against stimulus spending, even though (as he himself acknowledged when he first unveiled it) his story and Austrian business cycle theory are almost identical once the bust ensues. So it seemed that […]

Federal Government Overrides Executive Compensation Packages

CNBC reprints a NYT article: Responding to the growing furor over the paychecks of executives at companies that received billions of dollars in the government’s financial rescue, the Obama administration will order the companies that received the most aid to deeply slash the compensation to their highest paid executives, an official involved in the decision […]

Those Dirty Rotten Taxes

It’s funny how tax codes explain a lot. I’m doing this state tax policy analysis for PRI. On the Tax Foundation’s list of state corporate income tax rates, they have notes about Miscellaneous stuff. Here’s the extra info on Michigan, besides its 4.95% corporate income tax: There is an additional modified gross receipts tax (sales […]