Collectivism: A False Utopia
Here is an extremely interesting book from 1937: Collectivism: A False Utopia (link takes you to full text).
NYT celebrates Tax Day
An oped calls for getting rid of the word taxes and replacing it with the word dues. Why? Well, the word taxes seems punitive, whereas dues suggests “obligation and duty.”
Now we come to the civics text sermon: “we thrive because of the schools and transit systems and 10,000 other services that exist only because we have joined together.”
The Flat Tax: Too Little Too Soon.
Mid April is always depressing time of year. The ski season is ending, spring colors have not yet arrived, the pollen count is rising, and above all we must all now “celebrate” Tax Day. Tax day is a miserable time for two reasons: we are made more aware of our tax burden and we come to face the compliance costs of the Income Tax. While it is the case that life has some necessary inconveniences, we should consider how much of our grief on tax day is unavoidable.
Federal taxation will exist so long as there is a Federal government, obviously.
We’re in the double digits
The Producer Price Index is out and it shows a change in intermediate goods in March 2008 from 12 months ago (unadjusted) at a 10.5% increase. This follows a 8.8% rate of increase in February and January. Focusing on energy alone, the news is devastating: “The intermediate energy goods index advanced at a 46.4-percent SAAR (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate) from December 2007 to March 2008 after moving up at a 50.6-percent SAAR during the final quarter of 2007.”
Morality and Political Violence
Professor Coady is best known for a book on the epistemology of testimony, Testimony: A Philosophical Study (Oxford University Press, 1992); but he has also established a well-deserved reputation as an authority on the just-war tradition. In Morality and Political Violence, he has produced a major work, characterized by an abundance of good sense and acute argument.
I have no hesitation in recommending Morality and Political Violence.Are Recessions Deflationary?
Over the past few months, I have become increasingly irritated with the confident press claim that recessions lead to lower rates of price inflation. For reasons that I myself do not understand, a recent Wall Street Journal piece pushed me over the edge, and the article you are now reading is the fruit of my frustration. By the end, I hope to convince you that both theory and history show that economic downturns lead to higher price inflation, other things equal.
The Dangers of Samuelson’s Economic Method
A memorably painful part of my graduate education consisted of my attempts to read and understand Samuelson’s landmark book Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947), a treatise in mathematical economic theory, patterned after classical thermodynamics, that set the tone for much of what the cleverest mainstream economists would do for decades to come.
The Relentless Process of Socializing Health Care
The movement towards socialized medicine is strong but widely misunderstood. Many ordinary people see health care as a right and complain that it is too expensive. Some economists also see problems with the existing health care system and propose public-sector alternatives. One serious problem with those who want socialized medicine is that they fail to see the problems that already exist with governmental involvement in health care.
Economists and their Frameworks
Part of the problem with being an economist — besides having to don sunglasses and a fake beard to avoid throngs of adoring fans and marriage proposals when out in public — is that once you think about a particular economic issue in a certain way, it’s virtually impossible to shake that mindset. If some other economist is reaching a different conclusion with his preferred mental framework, you stubbornly cling to your own conclusion because “when I think about it this way” you seem to be right.
Did the Fed Cause the Housing Bubble?
One of the few positive developments from the housing bubble is that many mainstream economists have recognized the pernicious role played by the Federal Reserve. Indeed, some analysts on CNBC have discussed the outright abolition of the Fed.