Value and Exchange

Displaying 821 - 830 of 944
Gary Galles
The constant drumbeat of housing "investigative reports," cut from their common mold, would be almost farcical, if the problems were not so serious. But the fact that those problems exist today is deplorable, because they are the result of willful ignorance of what has long been understood about the housing market. 
Adam Young

It's a neat trick, writes Adam Young: the media sell a certain viewpoint, then take a poll and cite public opinion to illustrate that, yes indeed, the public agrees with what it has been told, and that the only solution is more government intervention.

George Reisman

It is never profitable--and therefore, never reasonable--for a business to refuse to do business that is profitable for it to do, writes George Reisman. To pretend that businessmen and their greed are nonetheless responsible for people not being supplied, and for people therefore suffering deprivation and even death, is to display an ignorance of elementary economic law.

Frank Shostak

The alarm raised by mainstream economists that corporate cost cutting will undermine the real foundation of the economy is based on a flawed view of the essence of savings. On the contrary, writes Frank Shostak, cost cutting is an important means in correcting previous erroneous decisions so that real wealth can be generated again.

Christopher Mayer

There is something about monetary phenomena that make them a particularly misunderstood aspect of economic life. Deflation is no exception. There seems to be little understanding as to what it is, what causes it, and whether or not it is something that should be prevented. The effects of deflation, like the quality of drinking water, cannot be considered without regard to its source.

Christopher Westley

Don't expect Amtrak to go away any time soon, despite the facts that its demise would be a cause of rejoicing for most of the country and that there is no justification for federal involvement in transportation found anywhere in the Constitution. The power of entrenched bureaucrats to create dependents of both politicians and their voters underscores a major reason why.

Mark Thornton

Terrorists killed nearly three thousand people on September 11, 2001, but more than three thousand died in the year 2001 waiting for a kidney transplant. Mark Thornton reports that these deaths are largely avoidable, via a market for organs.

Gene Callahan

Special-interest-group pleading often tries to hide behind supposedly economic arguments. It is important to debunk such arguments as they arise so that the interest group politics can be seen for what it is. In the spirit of Bastiat's Economic Sophisms, Gene Callahan offers the following.

Gene Callahan

Errors are an inevitable part of human action, writes Gene Callahan. If the future were certain, we would not need to act. Yet many economic models assume all economic actors possess perfect information, all plans are coordinated, and all adjustments to new data are made instantly and without cost.
 

Thomas J. DiLorenzo

As soon as Abraham Lincoln and the new Republican Party gained power, the average tariff rate was quickly raised from a nominal 15 percent to 47 percent and higher, and remained at such levels for decades after the war. South Carolinian John C. Calhoun's free-trade arguments, as eloquent and advanced as they were, were no match for a federal military arsenal.