There’s one saving grace about Paul Krugman’s column at the New York Times: when an Austrian economist wants to explain how mainstream economics leads to ruin, he can always trust Krugman to set up the target in a clear, concise manner. This saves us a lot of work, because we don’t have to first build up the position before knocking it down.
A remorseful Dr. Frankenstein speaking to Captain Walton about the monster he (Frankenstein) created and unleashed, “You seek for unlimited power, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.” (quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, paraphrased)
It’s election eve and Hannity and the other Republican talking heads have finally awakened to the outstretched arms of monster they created – the imperial president qua emperor.
At first blush, incarceration would seem to involve a loss of physical mobility – you have to stay in the prison all day and all night. You can’t go anywhere else. But you might have TV to watch, videos, recorded music, e-mail, mail mail, the Internet, even the prison library. So, the inability to move about outside the prison can be adapted to.
I don’t know what it is about the Nobel Prize that makes economists fall in love with John Maynard Keynes, but once again I see a Nobel winner trying to convince us that the Keynesian package is sound economics. This time it is Joe Stiglitz throwing idiocy at us in the name of economic authority.
While most of his article is pretty bad, he manages to outdo himself here:
When I saw the title of this Cato podcast–“Intellectual Property Versus Reason” (October 20, 2008)–I was hopeful and interested. Then I noticed it’s an interview with the Nobel-winning, er, physicist Robert B. Laughlin, author of the new book, The Crime of Reason and the Closing of the Scientific Mind.
Just what accounts for the people’s love affair with government?
Whenever I engage anyone in a discussion about getting rid of government, the first question I’m posed with is: “what about the roads?” “How would that work? I mean, if private enterprise owned the roads, then the road owners would jack up the price to point where we couldn’t leave our homes.” As if that’s what private firms do: raise prices to the point where no one can afford their products.
