Archive for Rothbard

Clarification on Cantillon Effects

Steve Horwitz’s thoughts reinforced my own inkling that I should spell out what I had always filed away as “the Austrian point about Cantillon effects.” So the following is what I would have said, had you asked me a month ago. Note that I speak for myself, and I’m not even saying this is what […]

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Potpourri

==> Nick Rowe agrees with me that Steve Landsburg’s analysis of paying down government debt is only true if we assume perfect certainty. (Steve I think would totally agree, and that’s why I said in my original post that this was an argument over specifying assumptions for the reader, not about the implications of those […]

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Libertarians Love Homesteading Theory Except If God Exists

I don’t want to link to our comments because nothing he said was unusual, but last week I got into it with a critic here about God violating people’s natural rights. In other words, my critic was claiming that we can use our reason to derive rights that human beings possess, and that’s how we […]

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I Think Bryan Caplan Should Tweak His Quality Control Setting

Yesterday at EconLog Bryan Caplan had a post entitled “Optimal Open-Mindedness” in which he wrote: Lately a few people have accused me of being “closed-minded.”  As they’d predict, I reject the accusation.  I say my degree of openness is close to optimal. Consistent with Bayesian reasoning, I am as reluctant to claim vindication by events as I […]

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NFL Referee Lockout and Private Law

This is a message I just sent to an email List, which I thought some of you might enjoy too: Just a thought for those of you who teach and discuss private law with your students: It seems to me that the NFL lock-out is a great opportunity to talk about private legal systems and […]

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Potpourri

I’m almost giddy for tonight’s Potpourri. I don’t know if I’m in a good mood and see the creativity and courage out there in the blogosphere, or if my blogging peers are all having a good week. In any event, here goes: ==> Paul Krugman recently wrote that the US was doing pretty good during […]

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Potpourri

==> Joe Salerno replies to George Selgin regarding Krugman’s challenge to the Austrians on MMMF. I actually think both Joe and George are wrong: They both use the phrase “could care less” when, in context, it is clear that they meant “couldn’t care less.” (Joe uses it in the post, George in his second reply, […]

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Potpourri

==> Here’s my American Conservative article from a week or two ago, talking about the myth of British austerity. If I do say so myself, my second chart (the third in the article) is a really good rebuttal to Krugman on this topic. I think it deals well with the “they have austerity relative to […]

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