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Megan McArdle & ABCT: The Silly Woman Theory of Error

Reader Bashkim Rrahmoni notified me of a Megan McArdle attack on Austrian business cycle theory. I was going to cut her some slack, but the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous her post struck me. In “The evil man theory of failure,” she tries to play it above the fray, transcending the foolishness […]

Greenspan Surrenders in the Battle Over Narrative

I hope this post doesn’t disillusion some of our younger readers, but we don’t hold back here at Free Advice: Ever since the financial crisis became obvious to all, many other free marketeers and I have been consciously trying to make sure government gets the blame for this, not “laissez-faire capitalism.” Obviously we are doing […]

"If You’re So Scared, Why Don’t You Stockpile Water?"

So asks Pete Leeson in a provocative blog post (see the opening thread, and then in this one a bunch of us [ex] Hillsdale profs tag team the poor pirate pedant*). In response, I pointed out that we don’t need to do that yet, because so far (except for gasoline) the government hasn’t imposed price […]

Hollywood Behind the Drug War?

When I was much younger, I was shocked to read that mobsters might favor gambling and drug prohibition, since they were involved in those areas. I.e. I still clung to the naive view that actual businesspeople longed to be left alone by the government. In that spirit, it occurred to me the other day–after watching […]

Arnold Kling Is Not Impressed With Mainstream Macroeconomics

This guy might be crankier than me! He quotes from a widely circulated Blanchard paper that summarized the state of macro and concluded it was “good.” Kling merely paraphrases Blanchard’s observations (fairly, too–i.e. Kling isn’t putting words into Blanchard’s mouth), and then points out that one might easily have concluded that mainstream macro is in […]

Fed Credit Charts as Fine Art

For those who have long suspected that economics is not a science, I am ashamed to report that several of us PhDs can’t even agree on whether there was a “credit crunch” during the first half of the year. Exhibit A is the Mark Thoma/Alex Tabarrok feud. They look at the exact same charts and […]

The Problem With Minarchist Analogies

This post will be critical of John Stossel, so I just want to make clear that he is awesome and is doing a lot to spread free market ideas. Now then… In a recent WSJ op ed, Stossel compares society to an ice skating rink, and explains that he filmed an attempt to “centrally plan” […]

Wanda Sykes on the Bailout

A surprisingly libertarian analysis. (She’s actually pretty good on other issues too since her Bush-bashing matches up with most of my views. I’m sure I will hate her comedy routines during an Obama administration, though.) HT2 Mitche.