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Yet More on the Bogus Credit Crunch

Casey Mulligan has designated this “WMD week” on his blog. His point is that the Bush Administration’s expensive (and liberty-sapping) efforts to avert financial disaster were as poorly justified as the invasion of Iraq to eliminate WMD. Although I love the spirit of his task, my problem for some of his earlier posts was that […]

I Knew I Should Have Left My Blackberry On During Christmas Break!

Sam Bostaph passed along this article with this shocking sentence: Only one outside economist contacted by Obama aides, Harvard’s Greg Mankiw, who served on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, voiced skepticism about the need for an economic stimulus, transition officials said. I’m sorry everyone. I left my contact information with Governor Blagojevich’s office, but […]

"Trillion Has Become the New Billion"

What a fantastic line from the CNN guy interviewing Ron Paul! Incidentally, Ron Paul lights it up in this interview. How many other people mention Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard, as if all the cool kids know these names? And check out his reaction to the Krugman reference. (HT2LRC)

PRI Report on the "Sizzle of Economic Freedom"

Over the summer I helped Lawrence McQuillan at PRI with its new report, “The Sizzle of Economic Freedom,” that summarizes the empirical literature on the benefits of economic freedom. (Press release here, actual report pdf here.) The way it works is that there are a few fairly objective rankings of countries (or smaller regions such […]

Sex & Money

In an effort to boost ratings, we occasionally pass along titillating links. Reader Phil Maymin sent me his article comparing central banking to a government sperm bank (though he did not specify the analog of fiduciary media–OH!). And CNBC reports that the porn industry is looking for a bailout too. (Some bad double entendres are […]

An Old Argument on Austrian Strategy

Over at The Austrian Economists, Greg Ransom and I (plus some others) are arguing with Pete Boettke about the best way for Austrian economists to advance the school. I wisely said last night that I would be making my last post, so now honor forbids me from correcting the latest posts from Boettke (and now […]

MasterResource Post on Oil Speculation

Over at MasterResource I make another guest blog post, this time tackling Robert Bryce’s possibly premature concession on whether speculators were driving oil prices. I don’t really take a stand but just try to clarify the debate: In the broadest sense, any price is caused by “supply and demand.” The prices for Las Vegas real […]

WSJ: Families Save More And Wreck Economy

I’m not making this up. The actual headline is, “Hard-Hit Families Finally Start Saving, Aggravating Nation’s Economic Woes.” (HT2LRC) Here’s some great analysis from the nation’s “economically savvy” newspaper: As layoffs and store closures grip Boise, these two local families hope their newfound frugality will see them through the economic downturn. But this same thriftiness, […]