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Mario Rizzo on the Misdirection of Resources

Folks, you don’t understand that my dissertation chairman Mario Rizzo is normally a low-key guy. He has been summoned into the policy debate much as Batman heeds Commissioner Gordon’s signal. Anyway, here’s Rizzo’s talk to the Club for Growth meeting. It’s really good. An excerpt: To create value, stimulus will have to steer clear of […]

Ay Caramba! The Spanish Should Cut Taxes for the Right Reasons

Details here. An excerpt: En conclusión, los críticos del plan de “estímulo” de casi un billón de dólares tienen razón en apoyar recortes de impuestos antes que aumentar el gasto público. Sin embargo, muchos de éstos justifican su crítica de tal forma que ellos mismos demuestran la superioridad del gasto gubernamental. Un correcto análisis muestra […]

The Chicago Tea Party?

This was all over the internet yesterday, but just in case you missed it: CNBC’s Rick Santelli goes nuts from a Chicago trading floor. The anchors back at the station keep chuckling and making dumb jokes; I can’t tell if they were really thinking, “Whoa, Rick, tone it down!”

Producer Prices Rise Quickly in January

Now you never want to put too much into a single month’s readings, but if you–like me–have been wondering when the serious price inflation is going to start kicking in, the latest PPI report is sobering. If you take the raw numbers–i.e. not the “seasonally adjusted” ones–the following shows the monthly and annualized percent change […]

Wenzel Makes the Insider Case: Get Gold NOW

I knew that if I overlooked his ill-conceived attacks on Jeff Tucker and me, that Robert Wenzel would eventually justify my daily visit to his site. And he did not disappoint. Really, you need to read this whole blog post. Wenzel points out the government’s deception regarding money market fund withdrawals in September 2008, and […]

Walter Block–and Special Guest!–at Vanderbilt Law School

Unfortunately you can’t hear my jokes. I would’ve asked them to mic me if I realized Walter was going to be dishing so many questions my way.

The Breakdown of Bretton Woods

Here’s a great article on Mises.org discussing the sickness and finally death of the Bretton Woods world monetary system. It was always awkward for me to discuss this, because the conventional graphs of gold prices make it look as if the Fed did a good job for a few decades: But if you read the […]

American Idol: Critique of Democracy?

Here is an email I sent to a Listserv: Dear List, On the way to work this guy on the radio was talking about American Idol, and it reminded me of a possible paper topic. I don’t even have a TV and I can proudly say I never watched the show, but for those of […]