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What Has Government Done to Their Money?

This is pretty funny: An exciting new role has just opened up at the national mint of Chile, but there’s a catch: successful applicants will have to be able to spell the word “Chile.” That seemingly simple task was the undoing of the former general manager of the Chilean mint, Gregorio Iñiguez, who has reportedly […]

Arnold Kling Smells a Fed Rat

I’ve said before (can’t find the post) that Arnold Kling is my kind of cynic. Try this: Rather than try to come up with an economic theory to explain Fed policy, I would suggest a more cynical approach. The goal has been to transfer wealth to banks and to the holders of mortgage securities. The […]

Big Shoes to Fill

Ebeling and I leave the Hillsdale College econ faculty, and now those guys can’t even spell “Mises.” (Just kidding.)

GDP Bask

I am trying to pin down the nominal GDP (or GNP) in the US for the years 1919 – 1921. Wikipedia has a graph of US GDP from 1920-1940, but I can’t get the actual data points. Any help would be much appreciated, or, if you dislike the passive voice, I would much appreciate any […]

How Far the Mighty Have Fallen

[UPDATE below.] You know how I said Scott Sumner had revived my faith in economic bloggers? Well now I feel like the blond-haired kid on the beach who introduced Daniel-son to the other Cobra Kai’s. How’s this for you: I believe the Great Depression had two primary causes. One cause was deflationary monetary policies during […]

The Contentless Book Review

Well maybe I need to rethink my “Matt Yglesias just misunderstands economics” theme. He enthusiastically links to this review of Thomas Sowell by Alan Wolfe. Go ahead and skim Wolfe’s review; it’s a Star Chamber in prose. In his big bad book review, Wolfe (by my quick count) lets us know of about maybe three […]

Am I a "Truther"?

The Glenn Beck ambush of Debra Medina raises an obvious question: Am I a “truther”? Since I have been and will continue to be really busy with “real work,” let me throw Free Advice readers some red meat with this post. First, I absolutely love conspiracy theories, especially when they rely on incontrovertible evidence and […]

Guilt By Association: How Does One Draw the Line?

When I was in San Jose, at dinner the issue of giving talks to various types of crowds came up. The issue was, is it ever inappropriate (either morally or just strategically) for an antiwar libertarian to give a talk to a particular group? Obviously we are assuming the speaker agrees wholeheartedly with what he […]