The NYT reports that Muhammad Yunus has been forced out of his own Grameen Bank under allegations of fraud and mismanagement. He denies the charges but one paragraph from the article certainly raises questions about Grameen’s operations:
Some theorists claim that externalities are probably the most legitimate reason for state intervention in human interactions. The ethical case for intervention is that it can presumably increase overall economic efficiency. This article demonstrates that, even if one accepts this ethical principle, the usual choice of externality-generating actions that are believed to justify state intervention is purely arbitrary.
[Excerpted from An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, vol. 1, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith. An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download.]
The division of labor works in dating as it does with anything else. The academically inclined should focus their energies and time on their studies. That’s what they enjoy and what they’re good at. And now these young entrepreneurs have created a way to efficiently match potentially compatible people.
p>San Fransisco’s push for low-flush toilets has created a serious problem. There is not enough water flowing through the system, and so the back up has created a gigantic, city-wide stink. This can be fixed but only by pouring massive, unthinkable amounts of bleach into the sewer system, a prospect that has many people very alarmed. It’s the old story: intervention begets intervention. Perhaps we should think a bit less about “saving” water and start thinking about saving civilization.
In 1789 a group of men gathered in Paris to sound the death knell for the ancien regime, and to inaugurate the modern political world. But there were some differences among them. Some wanted to abolish the old order more completely. Others wanted to retain some vestiges of the old privileges. In this “National Constituent Assembly” of France, the ideological birds of a feather sat together: the more radical members on the left, the more conservative members on the right.
Paul Krugman’s “Ricardo’s Difficult Idea” is still one of my favorite pieces of pop economics.
The world center of gravity of the Austrian-economics movement has long been the United States. That could change.
My latest Forbes piece is about the ongoing strife in Wisconsin. Here are a couple of additional thoughts based on what I’ve observed:
