What you need to know about the WTO
Confusion and Clarity in Cancun (Lew Rockwell, LRC):
Private Bungling or Government?
A colleague sent me a newspaper story that focuses on a former CPA-Consulting firm we both worked for, one of the largest and most respected firms of its kind in the country (It’s in the ‘Big Ten’, and in the Fortune Magazine‘s Top 100 Companies to Work For every year, usually in the Top 10 or 15.) Apparently, they “botched” a tech plan estimate (by $2.4 million) for the Township I live in, and this is making news. All the blame, of course, is on the private firm.
The Myth of Efficiency, by Murray Rothbard
From The Myth of Efficiency: Let us take a given individual. Since his own ends are clearly given and he acts to pursue them, surely at least his actions can be considered efficient. But no, they may not, for in order for him to act efficiently, he would have to possess perfect knowledge—perfect knowledge of the best technology, of future actions and reactions by other people, and of future natural events.
Grasso: Much Ado about Nothing
The decision by the New York Stock Exchange to oust Dick Grasso is a shameful one, in my opinion. Keep in mind that most of the pay packed was deferred compensation, as Grasso for years had not accepted all of his pay. In other words, the NYSE was paying Grasso back for money he basically had lent the exchange.
Praxeology, Value Judgments, and Public Policy, by MNR
Praxeology,Value Judgments,and Public Policy
By Murray N. Rothbard
(in PDF)
The Fallacy of the Public Sector, by Murray Rothbard
The Bipartisan War Machine
The neoconservative clique and their partners have deepened the state’s commitment to empire, but Republicans hold no monopoly on building empire in the recent history of our country. The Clinton regime, now seemingly forgotten except as a kind of Camelot II by the American Left, featured most of the same patterns of imperial conquest and domestic repression.
That Alabama Tax Vote
The proposed tax wasn’t about progress. In the next century, the states that relieve dangerous regulatory and tax discrepancies by reducing taxes and regulations will be the ones that maintain their current levels of capital investment and attract new stores of it. Low taxes are no longer an ideal from which to gauge relative policy prescriptions. Rather, they are an imperative.
Pension Problems Defined: A Contribution
Just as in the US, another area which produces rich harvest of muddled thinking in the UK, too, is the whole vexed question of company pensions.We raise this because the papers here are filled with condemnation of the National Australia Group’s decision to close its defined benefits pension to new entrants at its main British subsidiaries, Yorkshire Bank, Clydesdale Bank and Northern Ireland’s Northern Bank.
Is Atkins Driving Meat Sales?
Marginal Revolution points to an interesting piece in Slate on the economics of beef and dietary trends. The question concerns how to explain the boon in beef and the bust in bread. ”Is there really an Atkins economy?” asks Charles Duhigg, and he attempts to disprove the idea that the Atkins craze is responsible.
