This news item will give the remaining Veblenians out there something to fret about: “So far, the only ‘must have’ item this holiday season is not a toy. It is not an article of clothing. It is not even a specific model of cellphone, or DVD or digital camera. It is a candle that smells like a fig.” Get yours for $19.50.
The “trampled shopper” story that was used to smear Wal-Mart, Christmas shopping, and commerce itself is a fake. The woman who claimed to have been run over and left in the dust by shoppers anxious for a bargain is a professional victim, with 16 injury claims, 9 of them against Wal-Mart. (Courtesy of Drudge)
Bush says his steel tariffs worked and can now be repealed (yes, we are supposed to believe the repeal has nothing to do with the WTO and the impending trade war). Worked in what sense? The US government assumed up to $11 billion pension obligations, so those liabilities are now borne by the taxpayer. And Forbes reports that US steel production fell between Oct 2002 and Oct 2003 by 6.7%—despite the tariffs.
In these recent remarks by Samuel Brittan, Hayek’s rendition of the Austrian theory of the business cycle is dismissed because it entails a “relative contraction” of consumption during the boom. We should note, though, that Mises rendition is different from Hayek’s in this regard: He repeatedly refers to the “malinvestment and overconsumption” that characterizes the boom. Also, as early as 1934, Richard Strigl took, in effect, the Mises view over the Hayek view on this issue.
Bill Fleckenstein on investing pioneer John Templeton, who is a mega-bear on equities and real estate:
In Fiber to the People (Wired), Lawrence Lessig argues that advanced fiber networks are “natural monopolies” and hence should be backed by local governments as a cost-saving measures, so long as the customers remain the owners (in what sense they are owners is never spelled out).
The good democratic news is that public economic policy closely corresponds to public economic opinion. The bad news is that the public is economically ignorant, so public economic policy is terrible. Bryan Kaplain explains in a two part article on EconLib, “Mises and Bastiat on How Democracy Goes Wrong” (part I, part II).
In his piece “Does Islam Need a Luther or a Pope?” (TechCentral), Edward Feser writes “There is, in my view, no more penetrating account of our civilization than that provided by the work of the economist and social theorist Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992). Hayek is, of course, well known for his defense of the market economy, but no less significant is his analysis of the social and cultural preconditions for the survival and flourishing of such an economy.
