To speak about average prices is like talking about average precipitation to a golfer, writes Chris Mayer. It either rains during a specific time period or it doesn't. There is no average that is anyway useful for an acting human being on a golf course. The only information that counts is what it is doing right now while he is teeing off. It is the same with prices.
In a market society, any distinction of classes only serves to represent some snapshot in time as movement between classes is continually fluctuating, writes Christopher Coyne. This is in stark contrast to the non-market caste system where affiliation with a class or caste is hereditary and largely unchanging.
Millions of students begin their first day of classes with a profound awareness of the impending make-or-break tests, to be taken at regular intervals from the first to the twelfth grade. On the face of it, writes Jeffrey Tucker, it seemed to work. But reformers forgot one thing: we are dealing here with public school.
The best thing Greenspan can do, other than to close down the fraudulent entity known as the Federal Reserve System, is to sit back and do absolutely nothing. A sedentary Alan Greenspan harms no one. When he is active, however, watch out, says William Anderson. The man is dangerous.
The Spitzer restructuring of Wall Street will not achieve its stated objective of restoring confidence in the stock market, writes James Sheehan. Instead, it will create a government sanctioned stock research cartel, the legacy of which will be higher costs, more inefficiency, and less competition.
Hardly a day goes by when Mark Brandly doesn't observe confusion on the subject of international trade, from pundits who blame it all of American economic and social to those who think trade can only thrive in the context of treaties and war. This primer corrects most of the big mistakes.
Many intellectuals believe that war is good for many things, including fixing up a weak economy, writes Adam Young. The coming invasion and occupation of Iraq will happen because the Bush administration believes in the Keynesian/Great Depression myth of perpetual war for perpetual prosperity.
The answers we receive from the academics in response to the collapse of the Enron Corporation and the implosion of other firms are not answers at all. At best, they deal only with effects, or, at worst, reverse the pattern of cause and effect. To put it another way, writes William Anderson, the people who are supposed to know the answers don’t even know what questions they should pursue.
If someone is forced to engage in work that he otherwise would not do, and he is not paid compensation to which he agrees for that work, then we call this slave labor. It cannot be defined by any other term, writes William Anderson. Princeton's Paul Krugman and his followers, however, believe that the state should force people to do its bidding, even if it means they will not receive payment for their work.
