It’s tough to be an economist. Not only must you endure years of stultifying lectures and readings, you must also brave the feigned approval of those who had innocently asked, “Oh, a professor? What do you teach?”
But beyond this, there is a deeper problem: I can’t help watching certain movies without being distracted by nagging problems that would trouble only an economist.
You know hypocrisy, as when the pot calls the kettle black? Well, this news report gives new meaning to the idea:
The rise in American consumer debt has been accompanied by a sharp increase in complaints about aggressive and sometimes unscrupulous tactics by debt collection agencies, a phenomenon that has government regulators increasingly concerned.
Walter Block’s latest article is Coase and Kelo: Ominous Parallels And Reply to Lott on Rothbard on Coase, from Vol. 27, no. 4 (2006) of the Whittier Law Review.
I’ve scanned and uploaded Tibor Machan The Moral Case for the Free Market Economy (Edwin Mellen Press, 1988) (with the author’s permission; it was informally published on regular sized paper, not hard-bound). From the preface:
In his paper “Toward a Reconstruction of Utility Theory and Welfare Economics,” Murray Rothbard writes: “We conclude therefore that no government interference with exchanges can ever increase social utility,” (his emphasis).
No more countries; just websites. (Thanks Gary North)
The roots of America’s governance problems are continually discussed, particularly on July 4. But they are far from new, because they trace back to a mistaken approach to government. Fortunately, this problem was dissected long ago by Frederic Bastiat, among history’s most ardent and eloquent defenders of liberty, whose June 30 birthday we mark on Saturday. In his 1848 essay, Government, he gave what may still be the most insightful critique of our current problems arising from government.
