I spent part of yesterday afternoon making Economics Memes for my classes. You can find the results here. The memes are to complement my “Nine Principles of Economics” post and my IHS “Economics on One Foot” video.

Housingwire today reports that bank risk managers still believe that excessive levels of mortgage debt, student loan debt and credit-card debt are still a serious risk.

FICO drew that conclusion from a fourth-quarter survey of bank risk professionals conducted by the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association.

Of those surveyed, 47% of risk managers say they expect mortgage delinquencies to rise, while 13% believe delinquencies will fall.

As an adolescent, I read and reread a well-worn copy of Eliot Ness’s The Untouchables, always captivated by the story of the incorruptible government agent. Ness and his 12 Prohibition agents took on Al Capone, the most recognizable gangster and bootlegger of the age, risking life and limb to protect the city streets of Chicago. Whether facing down Al Capone’s tommy-gun-toting henchman or prosecuting police corruption, Ness always appeared to be the last bastion of moral probity in an era of open violence and licentiousness.

The idea of a society where people are free to “do their own thing” is an appealing one.

The very essence of the interventionist politicians’ wisdom is to raise the price of labor either by government decree or by violent action on the part of labor unions. To raise wage rates above the height at which the unhampered market would determine them is considered a postulate of the eternal laws of morality as well as indispensable from the economic point of view. Whoever dares to challenge this ethical and economic dogma is scorned both as depraved and ignorant.

I’m speaking to a Mid-South Model UN Group in about an hour about human rights and the Millennium Development Goals. I’m planning to record the talk, and it should be online eventually. Since human rights include the right to trade without interference, I’m going to focus on a couple of issues: free trade and immigration. Here is a handful of links-heavy posts from Division of Labour that I’ve written on immigration.

One would think Matthew Yglesias had become quite well versed in Austrian Economics by now or at least slightly familiar, but alas that is not the case. Sadly all one can do is shake ones head as I think it is a lost cause and he really is not interested in learning why it was Ron Paul stated that “We are all Austrians now.”

Constitutional law is supposed to be different from other types of law. But the Obamacare litigation headed to the Supreme Court shows that liberal interpreters of the Constitution have forgotten the distinction.