But who would take care of the poor?
Joshua Fulton argues against the popular notion “that nobody would help support the less fortunate” in his article, Welfare before the Welfare State. I’d like to claim that many recall the horrible conditions of poverty during the industrialization era, except…
Chasing GDP
According to wikipedia, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) can be calculated a number of ways. I’d like to pick out (on?) the most common one for this rant. GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports −…
Born v. Greenspan
PBS Frontline has produced a show, The Warning which documents the CFTC’s attempt to introduce regulation to avoid a financial crisis brought about by the derivatives market. It cronicles how the three marketeers, Greenspan, Summers, and Rubin successfully shut Born…
Anti-libertarian views
Because I get most of my world views from a self-chosen, selective subset of the internet, I’m exposed to a great deal of sycophantic thought. I don’t think it’s a large problem that I read only that which I agree…
Market-based Medicine
The Capital Account show had an episode: How the market can cure the healthcare crisis, with Dr. Keith Smith. In the show, Dr. Smith demonstrated that his Surgery Center of Oklahoma generates reasonable profits which providing slightly below average cost…
Interesting articles of the week
Depression’s Upside by Jonah Lehrer, posits that ruminative thought may be an adaptive mechanism for a more realistic, attentive outlook conducive to working through social issues. Is Algebra Necessary? by Andrew Hacker, paints a depressing picture about 33% of american…
Financial Networks
According to The Great Revealing post at Divine Cosmos it seems that Vitali, Glattfelder and Battiston at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich have released a paper [The network of global corporate control] which executes a version of…
Thoughts on Hugo’s Thought Experiment
Dear Hugo Salinas Price, In your article, Second Thoughts on the ‘Thought Experiment, you raised a sequence of 5 items which together form an objection which led you to believe that the Thought Experiment had to “go back to the…
Gold is Money
I would like to evaluate whether or not Gold functions better than paper as a currency. This subject comes up, because of an engaging argument that I had last night about the U.S. Constitution and it’s purview of the monetary…
Homo Economicus can vote, but chooses not to
Interesting lecture, put out by the Adam Smith Institute, about The Lessons of Public Choice Theory. It turns out that democracy is a less efficient system than the free market. For example, voters rationally remain ignorant because their input in…