Shameless Self-Promotion

Archive for Shameless Self-Promotion

Thoughts on President Obama’s SOTU Call for a $9 Minimum Wage

Nothing earth-shattering here. As I explained on Facebook, I mostly made this because my last 5 video uploads were karaoke.

Potpourri

==> I make a modest point about fracking and federalism. ==> Simon Lester thinks Krugman is up to no good on his post about protectionism, but I don’t really have a dog in that fight. BTW, my Krugman takedowns are still coming, I’m just digging myself out of a pile of stuff. ==> Consumers are […]

An Odd Proposal to Tax Oil, From the CFR

In this IER post I take on a new paper (published through the Council on Foreign Relations) to impose a $50/barrel tax on crude oil. Some excerpts: The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) recently released a study by Daniel Ahn and Michael Levi showing how a new tax on oil—which would ultimately raise pump prices […]

Potpourri

==> Murray Sabrin has been our man in Cuba. Here’s an article in a series of posts on his visit. ==> Jerry O’Driscoll doesn’t heart Bernanke. ==> John Papola also caught something that I noticed about the Stiglitz/Krugman exchange (on inequality): Stiglitz quite explicitly said that low consumption spending was the reason for our recession, […]

Capitalism Needs Losses, Too

This was the second talk I gave to a group of about 100 high school students in Houston a little while ago. I opened the event with, “The Social Function of Profits,” then Peter Klein followed with, “Big Business: Friend or Foe,” and I wrapped up with this one. Since I’m talking to high school […]

Potpourri

==> An interesting inventory at IER of “federal assets above and below ground.” I didn’t do this particular blog post, but I think it draws on some numbers I compiled in the past. This notion that if the feds don’t get to raise the debt ceiling, they have no choice but to cut PBS and […]

Potpourri

==> John Goodman (the economist, not the actor) cites two Murphys at Forbes. ==> Apparently Nate Silver could’ve saved me $500. ==> Speaking of the Henderson/DeLong/Krugman fiasco, here was Jeff Tucker’s reaction. ==> David Beckworth (and Ramesh Ponnuru) are half right: The government should cut spending. I get really worried when people say “Bernanke Controls […]

A Foreign Scholar Goes to the Barricades for Liberty

Hasting Chen has decided to translate my introductory textbook, Lessons for the Young Economist, into Chinese. He shared with me a memo he sent to his team, which I reproduce with permission: Although this project falls largely on my shoulder, as a piece of encouragement, though, I would like to disclose my thoughts of the […]