The American Economic Review has published Esther Duflo’s Richart T. Ely Lecture, “The Economist as Plumber” (ungated version here, video version here). The essay summarizes Duflo’s vision of economics. First, economics is primarily useful as a policy tool; i.e., the main role of the economist is to advise governments in designing laws and regulations.
Firefighting isn’t what it used to be. Thanks to fire suppression technology, structural fires are now very rare, and statistics show that firefighters rarely fight fires anymore. Mostly, firefighters respond to run-of-the-mill medical emergencies in fancy million-dollar trucks. Governing magazine lays out the change over time:
If inflation is the health of the State, how and in what way has government generated inflation in the history of the United States? The following case studies illustrate this process, as well as the important connection between inflation and centralized State control of the economy. They illustrate also the connection of inflation with mercantilism—the use of economic regulation and intervention by the State to create special privileges for a favored group of merchants or businessmen.
Anybody who has ever dealt with internet lag should realize that bandwidth is a finite resource. Like any other economically scarce commodity, the price and profit mechanisms of the market serve to direct the allocation of this resource as efficiently as possible. This is why people pay more for faster speeds or larger data caps.
With James Comey’s firing, we’re told the FBI is in turmoil, and Washington DC cocktail parties are all atwitter over the excitement of the scandal. But don’t worry about the FBI. If history has proved anything, the Bureau, no matter how much chaos it may endure, can always rely on a fat check from Congress — funded by the American taxpayers.
Several large regimes have hinted they’ll be looking more favorably on bitcoin, leading to record prices for the digital currency.
Everett Numbers reports at The Anti-Media:
The price of bitcoin just surpassed $1,800, its second all-time high this week. As governments worldwide eye the blockchain technology and ready new cryptocurrency rules, there is no sign bitcoin’s astronomical rise in value, up 81 percent this year, is over
Chicago Fed President Charles Evans spoke on Friday, expressing his fear that there was risk to the downside on the inflation outlook. These people! Unlike the Austrians, who define inflation and deflation in terms of the supply of money and fiduciary media, the mainstream defines them in terms prices. Thus, when Evans and others like him consider there being risk of too low inflation, what they are saying us that they fear the cost of living either falling or not rising fast enough (2% annually).
G.K. Chesterton called the family an anarchistic institution. He meant that it requires no act of the state to bring it about. Its existence flows from fixed realities in the nature of man, with its form refined by the development of sexual norms and the advance of civilization.
The EU cannot afford to prevaricate over Brexit because a bad Brexit risks causing it immeasurable harm. Not only does big business in Europe want a Britain with which it can freely trade, but confidence in the European Project is rapidly diminishing. The EU is a mega-state that is fading, and no one knows how to ensure its survival. Inevitably, the failings of the EU are catching up with it, and Britain’s leaving exposes the financial consequences of decades of bad management, capital destruction through wasteful redistribution and the lack of any contingency planning.
