Shameless Self-Promotion

Archive for Shameless Self-Promotion

Solving the Great Piketty Minimum Wage History Mystery

My latest at Mises CA. For the quick version, Phil Magness showed me a data table from Piketty that makes it clearer what the heck happened with Piketty’s erroneous “history” of the U.S. minimum wage. Specifically, Piketty came up with annual values by looking at the minimum wage as it stood on January 1 of […]

Scott Sumner’s Incredible Arguments on the Swiss Currency Peg

My latest at Mises CA. If you’re in a rush, here’s the graph to accompany Scott Sumner’s defense (made in December before the dropped it) where he said it was a piece of cake to maintain the peg: I found some monetary base data that is quite interesting. From January to September 2011 the Swiss […]

Three Myths About Tax Reform

My latest FEE article. An excerpt: The “correct” amount of saving, in terms of economic theory, is that which people choose in a free market. People have underlying preferences for present versus future consumption, and they engage in mutually advantageous trades — guided by interest rates — to rearrange the timing of their income and […]

Potpourri

==> My co-authors at the Fraser Institute and I have a new book out that explains economic principles to the layperson. The ideas are universal but the book is aimed at a Canadian audience. ==> When Tyler Cowen goes head-to-head against Scott Sumner, I side with Cowen. ==> Phil Magness has some fun with the […]

Murphy vs. Krauthammer on Gas Tax

My latest at IER. For you folks, here’s the part I want to highlight: First, let’s use a trick from the minimum wage debate, which I’m sure Krauthammer and other Fox contributors will appreciate. When a progressive says how great boosting the minimum wage to (say) $10/hour would be, the easiest way to show the […]

Correcting Hartmann on U.S. Tax History

My latest at Mises CA. On Facebook I saw a meme with 60,000 shares from “U.S. Uncut” that was simply awful. You don’t realize how awful it is until I walk you through it. Come, let us explore together.

Potpourri

==> In my latest Mises CA post, I dig up an old Scott Winship article *defending* Piketty from the FT’s Chris Giles. Hilarity ensues. ==> Speaking of the man, Tyler Cowen links to this interview with Piketty who said of the FT critique: “I have responded in a very precise manner to every point they raised, […]

Potpourri

==> Tom Woods reports: My paper with Phil Magness on Piketty is the #1 downloaded in the past 60 days at Social Sciences Resource Network. If only truth were a popularity contest! (Oh wait, Piketty would be right then.) BTW, I should officially say that Phil did most of the laborious wading through Piketty’s spreadsheets, […]