Supporters of carbon taxes like to tell Americans not to worry, that people warning about “Big Government” are scaremongers, and that we can certainly trust political officials to calibrate taxes based on the scientific recommendations of economists in white lab coats. Yet recent news out of British Columbia shows just how aggressive the government can get, if given permission to tax an “inelastic” good like gasoline.

Last fall, the Washington Post reported on how a “chilling study” showed that college students are “hostile...toward free speech.” 

Central banks are shrouded in secrecy and few understand how they operate. These institutions handle economic matters that we’re told are far too complex for average people to understand.

The Federal Reserve’s secrecy originated from its inception, when created by a group of elite men using secret code names at a place named Jekyll Island a century ago. No doubt at least one mustache was twirled mischievously. Of course the day to day of monetary policy is far less thrilling, but that doesn’t mean the consequences of these bankers’ actions are any less dramatic.

I’ve been really enjoying David Beckworth’s Macro Musings podcast - a nice, conveniently way of hearing some good econ discussions outside of my own personal bubble.

Bradford DeLong posted a vicious rant on his blog recently accusing the signatories of a letter in support of President Trump’s economic policies of being “both 100% cynical and 100% deluded” as well as “moronic and easily grifted.” However, it turns out that Delong himself suffers from the delusion that a president gets to write and pass legislation exactly as he sees fit.

Eric Posner and Gen Weyl claim that economics has become too timid. Posner is an influential law professor at Chicago, and Weyl is a principal researcher at Microsoft. Their article appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education on May 6. Their diagnosis of economics is accurate, but their cure is worse than the disease.

Various assumptions employed by mainstream economists appear to be of an arbitrary nature. The assumptions seem to be detached from the real world.

A recent announcement by a local transit authority in Virginia sheds light on how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are building a massive, intrusive surveillance network built on America’s transportation system.