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Ludwig von Mises On the Health Insurance Bill

[UPDATE below.] Ever since I finished the Study Guide to Mises’ magnus opus, he has been communicating with me from beyond the grave. I asked him what he thought of the pending health insurance legislation, and he reminded me of his general principles of the dynamics of interventionism. Once the government interferes with one aspect […]

For Road Trips of Moderate Length…

…why not listen to a guy with a sweet English accent read my Chaos Theory? Intro here, audio recording here.

The Connection Between Drug Prohibition and Violence

If you read a standard economic treatment of drug prohibition, it will probably say that drug dealers become more violent since they can’t use the police and courts to protect their property. At first that sounds fine, but if you are suspicious of government “services” then you start to wonder. In fact, I think the […]

Glenn Greenwald Explains: "Why Do They Hate Us?"

Sometimes I just have to marvel at how succinctly Glenn Greenwald crystallizes things that have been bothering me. He has the extra benefit of actually being knowledgeable on issues of terrorism and the law, which is nice. Here’s a great passage from today, but you should read the whole post: [I]t’s impossible to grow accustomed […]

Economic Blogger Ranking, By Scholarly Impact

Check out this article (HT2 Greg Mankiw). It has a table ranking econ bloggers by scholarly impact. I don’t mind being beaten by Paul Samuelson, or Nouriel Roubini, or even Tyler Cowen or Bryan Caplan for that matter. But Stephan Kinsella?! What the heck?! (Incidentally we have surpassed our weekly quota of I-hate-GMU / no-I-hate-Auburn […]

If the Mises Institute Did Not Exist, We Would Have to Invent It

Arnold Kling is frustrated with the prospects for libertarians. He writes: One idea, promoted at Cato by Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson, is liberaltarianism [sic]. The idea is to approach liberals and say, “we’re with you on social issues and we’re also dovish on foreign policy. Let us persuade you that markets are good for […]

Glenn Greenwald Points Out (Some) Progressives’ Hypocrisy on Obama vs. Bush

Another great post by GG, this time on Obama’s apologists explaining that there will be a trial for the underwear bomber because “we live under the rule of law.” Here’s GG: So in order to justify giving a civilian trial to AbdulMutallab, [Obama terrorism advisor] John Brennan cites the fact that we are “a nation […]

Rummel’s Thesis

I was reading the opening of R.J. Rummel’s Death By Government. I needed to get some stats on the crimes of communist countries, and Rummel’s book came highly recommended. I have no problems with his figures; he seemed extremely conscientious and acknowledged the limitations of the estimates. But I had trouble with his underlying thesis, […]