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We Need Privacy From the Government

At LRC today I have an article explaining why the free market provides the efficient amount of privacy, while government is the true threat. An excerpt: Even in a completely free society where everyone respected private property rights, it would still be the case that your doctor would know what medications you were taking, your […]

Tyler Cowen Accidentally Confirms Austrian Business Cycle Theory

This is almost too delicious to be true. Back in January 2005, Tyler Cowen (an econ prof at George Mason who runs the very popular blog MarginalRevolution) had a post titled, “If I believed in Austrian business cycle theory.” It’s hilarious because Cowen did (and does) not believe in ABCT, yet his “predictions” were uncanny–I […]

Offshore and ANWR Drilling Would Lower Prices Immediately

Notwithstanding certain politicians’ claims to the contrary, if the federal government gave the green light to development of ANWR and offshore oil deposits, prices would fall immediately. This is because producers with excess capacity in the present (basically, Saudi Arabia) would see the drop in future prices (because of the new barrels hitting the market […]

Are We in a Recession?

Unable to fool the public into thinking things are rosy, here is now the “consensus” view from official economists: “The U.S. economy may have avoided a recession but will grow below trend for some time…” Isn’t it surprising that during the worst financial crisis in decades, with record oil and food prices, and with the […]

How Secure Is Your Bank’s Website?

Some commonsense tips that are worth skimming. For example, I knew about “https” but I didn’t realize the shading of the URL bar meant anything. Thanks to Robert Wenzel for the link.

House Prices: It’s Always Darkest Before Dawn?

Housing prices have just set another record year-over-year decline: They fell 15.9 percent from June 2007 to June 2008. Ah, but never fear! The monthly fall (from May to June) was only 0.5 percent, which is the lowest monthly drop since July 2007. Because of this last fact, the headlines read, “House Prices Show Signs […]

Fisher Says 50-50 Chance of High Inflation

Perhaps the most sensible voting member, Dallas Fed President Fisher thinks there is a 50-50 chance our recent inflation spike is a “one-off” event: “The real concern I have as a central banker is whether or not [inflation] begins to affect the mentality of spending patterns by consumers [and] pricing patterns by producers,” Fisher told […]

David Friedman on House Prices

My previous post on oil and stock prices naturally leads to the in-between case of houses, which provide immediate services and are a durable asset. Thus, when house prices go down, it’s not as obvious whether this is a good or a bad thing (as opposed to the cases of oil and shares of stock). […]