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Epstein Hearts Callahan

Gene Epstein places Gene Callahan’s Economics for Real People (book or pdf) at the top of his holiday list. (In the box it’s third in the list, but Epstein discusses it first.) It really is the best intro to Austrian economics available; I used it as a textbook in my Austrian I class at Hillsdale. […]

I’ve Found an Even Better Alter Ego

…or is it doppelganger? Anyway, for a while I’ve been amused by the Robert Murphy who is a left-leaning historian of economic thought in Boston. However, his middle initial is different from mine. Well today my good friend Google Alerts notified me of a guy who is a “planning consultant” for local government projects. His […]

I’m the Lyrical Gangster–Savior Style

This will no doubt be either irrelevant or old news to many readers, but in the past few years I have a newfound appreciation for the lyrics of Christmas carols. When I was younger, they were just what they were, and I didn’t think about them. Then I spent several years being “rational” and didn’t […]

Government "Creating Jobs"–Someone Please Make It Stop

(Ha ha get it? My title has at least two meanings. One of which is mildly amusing.) My next mises.org piece is going to tackle this whole notion of idle resources and how there is (allegedly) no tradeoff involved when the government directs workers and other resources into public works boondog–I mean investments in infrastructure. […]

The Guys At Env-Econ Smell A Green Jobs Rat

I’m glad to report that the two (fairly clever) guys over at Environmental Economics have been questioning the green jobs/fiscal stimulus orthodoxy. Now to be clear, they actually agree that there is a huge market failure and that the government should take steps to make greenhouse gas emitters “internalize the externalities.” But the point is, […]

Great Klein Post on the "Free Market" Bush Administration

I am still in the Dark Ages (an anti-Church misnomer) when it comes to reading blogs. My wife once tried to set up a Bloglines thingie for the sites I like, but it didn’t take. So that means I only read a limited number of blogs during a normal session. Consequently, I only read Peter […]

Brad DeLong: Budgets Deficits Are Awful Unless They’re Obama’s

Readers know that lately I’ve come to doubt the evenhandedness of Brad DeLong. (This makes it difficult for him to “grasp reality with both hands,” the professed goal of his blog.) My suspicions were further aroused when I saw him make this statement at TPMCafe (HT2 Arnold Kling): What is going to be the new […]

CARB Takes Criticism Well

Here is my Townhall column explaining how the California Air Resources Board (CARB) ignored scathing peer reviews of its economic analysis, and voted unanimously to go forward with the statewide cap-and-trade program (and other goodies) contained in AB 32, aka “The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.” (So now we can stop worrying about global […]