Thomson Reuters has been predicting Nobel Prizes for the last dozen years, with modest success, and this year names Israel Kirzner as a potential economics winner, in a hypothetical joint prize with William Baumol for research in entrepreneurship.
Even though it ultimately failed at the ballot box, the recent campaign for Scottish independence should cheer supporters of the numerous secession movements springing up around the globe.
In the weeks leading up to the referendum, it appeared that the people of Scotland were poised to vote to secede from the United Kingdom. Defeating the referendum required British political elites to co-opt secession forces by promising greater self-rule for Scotland, as well as launching a massive campaign to convince the Scots that secession would plunge them into economic depression.
President Barack Obama signed the Agricultural Act of 2014 into law on February 7, 2014.1 The legislation becomes law later than anticipated given the usual timing for farm bills, which typically work their way through the Congress every five years.
Whenever you see someone use the word “neoliberalism” you are probably dealing with someone who spends most of his or her time in a left-wing echochamber where people believe they are being oppressed by “free markets” and that things will be set right only when the kind, calming hand of government is able to tame the vile “free for all” that is people enjoying personal freedom.
Europe got some good news in early June as the EU changed its statistical guidelines on how to compute GDP. Among other changes, expenditures on prostitution and illicit drugs (hookers and blow, colloquially) will now be included. Of course, some countries have been including these items for years. Back in 2006, the Greek government was able to increase its reported GDP by 25% overnight by including these items! The reason the Greek government made the change back then was to have more flattering debt and deficit to GDP figures than otherwise. We now know how that story ended.
