Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Why The Stimulus Isn't Working: Q & A with economist Richard McKenzie
From Reason.tv website:
It's been a year since Congress passed a stimulus bill that will eventually dole out $787 billion in taxpayer money to lucky recipients across the country.
In California, stimulus money has been used to pay the salaries of cops, provide rental assistance to residents of Santa Monica, and subsidize homeowners who weatherize their homes. Were those good investments?
The University of California at Irvine was awarded $42 million in stimulus money to fund different research projects and, in one case, $2 million to "stimulate student interest in mathematics and computer science." Was that a good use of scarce public dollars?
To learn more, Reason.tv's Paul Feine spoke with UC-Irvine economist Richard McKenzie who, a year ago, predicted that the stimulus package wouldn't work.
McKenzie is the author of Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies: And other Pricing Puzzles.
MNLG Endorsement
I am very proud to say that last night at O'Gara's in St Paul I was endorsed by the wonderful members of Minnesotans for Limited Government.
See the list of endorsed candidates here.
See the list of endorsed candidates here.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Reason Saves Cleveland
Drew Carey hosts this 6-part series (condensed into 1 episode here) about the decline of his hometown Cleveland.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Peering Into Our Future?
Don Boudreaux shares a glimpse at the present in France and the possible future here in the U.S.
Read it here.
Read it here.
On Freedom
From the “Legend of the Grand Inquisitor,” Dostoyevsky’s story-within-a-story in The Brothers Karamazov:
Know then [said the Grand Inquisitor to the figure of Christ, who had mysteriously appeared to him], that now, and only now, Thy people feel fully sure and satisfied of their freedom; and that only since they have themselves and of their own free will delivered that freedom unto our hands by placing it submissively at our feet. . . .
Wouldst Thou go into the world empty-handed? Wouldst Thou venture thither with Thy vague and undefined promise of freedom, which men, dull and unruly as they are by nature, are unable so much as to understand, which they avoid and fear? — for never was there anything more unbearable to the human race than personal freedom . . . ! I repeat to Thee, man has no greater anxiety in life than to find someone to whom he can make over that gift of freedom with which the unfortunate creature is born. . . .
They will have no secrets from us. It will rest with us to permit them to live with their wives and concubines, or to forbid them, to have children or remain childless, either way depending on the degree of their obedience to us; and they will submit most joyfully to us the most agonizing secrets of their souls — all, all will they lay down at our feet, and we will authorize and remit them all in Thy name, and they will believe us and accept our mediation with rapture, as it will deliver them from their greatest anxiety and torture — that of having to decide freely for themselves.
(h/t: Peter Robinson via The Corner)
Know then [said the Grand Inquisitor to the figure of Christ, who had mysteriously appeared to him], that now, and only now, Thy people feel fully sure and satisfied of their freedom; and that only since they have themselves and of their own free will delivered that freedom unto our hands by placing it submissively at our feet. . . .
Wouldst Thou go into the world empty-handed? Wouldst Thou venture thither with Thy vague and undefined promise of freedom, which men, dull and unruly as they are by nature, are unable so much as to understand, which they avoid and fear? — for never was there anything more unbearable to the human race than personal freedom . . . ! I repeat to Thee, man has no greater anxiety in life than to find someone to whom he can make over that gift of freedom with which the unfortunate creature is born. . . .
They will have no secrets from us. It will rest with us to permit them to live with their wives and concubines, or to forbid them, to have children or remain childless, either way depending on the degree of their obedience to us; and they will submit most joyfully to us the most agonizing secrets of their souls — all, all will they lay down at our feet, and we will authorize and remit them all in Thy name, and they will believe us and accept our mediation with rapture, as it will deliver them from their greatest anxiety and torture — that of having to decide freely for themselves.
(h/t: Peter Robinson via The Corner)
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Lies, Damned Lies, and CBO Estimates
Mitchell hits a vital point when he touches on how budget forecasters rarely take into account how taxation causes people to modify their behavior.
Lies, Damned Lies, and CBO EstimatesPosted using ShareThis
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Some Thoughts on What We See and Don't See; OR How I Learned to Stop Remembering and Forget History
A sign at the Dachau Concentration Camp museum reads, "Those Who Forget History Are Doomed to Repeat It", and below it a photograph of a pile of dead bodies. The result of Nazi extermination.
~
I've been reading Henry Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson (I'm not sure why I am on this one now, I seem to start with the big, 700+ page books like Human Action instead of starting small and working my way up. Perhaps I'm just a glutton for punishment).
Anyway, I am always struck by how timeless books like Hazlitt's are. They repeatedly surprise me as works that could be just as easily applied to our current situations as they were when they were first published.
Take the 2nd chapter in EIOL (I'm using that abbreviation because I'm lazy and I don't have an editor). In this chapter, Hazlitt renews Bastiat's essay concerning the "Broken Window" fallacy in economics. This fallacy seems to be the root of many government interventions in our economy.
Take, for instance, this $1 billion bonding bill of a crap sandwich being fed to us by those in St Paul. Supporters of this bonding bill, such as, Paul Thissen, assert that if we (the government) spend a lot of money (like $1 billion) then that spending results in jobs, which results in people being able to spend their earnings on, well, "stuff". That spending on that "stuff" perpetuates the growth of the economy. The problem with this is that this $1 billion needs to come from somewhere and be financed and paid by something (TAXES). When the people have to repay this debt through taxation they are prevented from spending it on "stuff" that would further grow the economy. Essentially, that $1 billion may create some work for people to do, but it also prevents it from being spent on something else. To better analogize this, imagine taking a handful of dirty, sweaty, crumpled up dollar bills from your right pocket and putting it in you left pocket. All that you have done is transfer that money from one place to another, you haven't gained or lost anything. Nothing has been created. The same goes for massive spending bills like this (or any spending for that matter), work may be created for some, but it is also taken from others because the money being spent must later be paid for through taxation.
If you want to know if one of these politicians is full of B.S. ask them why they proposed $1 billion for this bonding bill. Heck, if $1 billion will create enough jobs to get our economy humming again, why not $2 billion? Why not $10 billion? At $10 billion our economy should be taking off like a rocket. Imagine, we could all look like this guy (or girl). Ask them which hack-economist told them that $1 billion is the "just right" amount to get our economy motoring along again. Perhaps it's this guy. One would think that the amount borrowed would have been prescribed to be a more exact, less rounded number, like $989, 413,607.00.
This path is really nothing new. Heck, this bonding bill is really just a miniature version of the federal stimulus bill passed last year. The Obama administration claimed that if the stimulus was passed unemployment would top out at 8%. Well, here we are, 1 year later, and we're hovering around 9.7%.
Why would we want a mini-stimulus in our own state if the grande version failed so miserably at the Federal level? Because we simply fail to remember and learn from history. This sales technique is really nothing new. Nixon tried it, Ford tried it, Carter tried it, and what did we get? The 70s, that's what we got. Aside from a Hollywood renaissance and Zeppelin, the 70s were nothing to write home about.
Remember, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
~
I've been reading Henry Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson (I'm not sure why I am on this one now, I seem to start with the big, 700+ page books like Human Action instead of starting small and working my way up. Perhaps I'm just a glutton for punishment).
Anyway, I am always struck by how timeless books like Hazlitt's are. They repeatedly surprise me as works that could be just as easily applied to our current situations as they were when they were first published.
Take the 2nd chapter in EIOL (I'm using that abbreviation because I'm lazy and I don't have an editor). In this chapter, Hazlitt renews Bastiat's essay concerning the "Broken Window" fallacy in economics. This fallacy seems to be the root of many government interventions in our economy.
Take, for instance, this $1 billion bonding bill of a crap sandwich being fed to us by those in St Paul. Supporters of this bonding bill, such as, Paul Thissen, assert that if we (the government) spend a lot of money (like $1 billion) then that spending results in jobs, which results in people being able to spend their earnings on, well, "stuff". That spending on that "stuff" perpetuates the growth of the economy. The problem with this is that this $1 billion needs to come from somewhere and be financed and paid by something (TAXES). When the people have to repay this debt through taxation they are prevented from spending it on "stuff" that would further grow the economy. Essentially, that $1 billion may create some work for people to do, but it also prevents it from being spent on something else. To better analogize this, imagine taking a handful of dirty, sweaty, crumpled up dollar bills from your right pocket and putting it in you left pocket. All that you have done is transfer that money from one place to another, you haven't gained or lost anything. Nothing has been created. The same goes for massive spending bills like this (or any spending for that matter), work may be created for some, but it is also taken from others because the money being spent must later be paid for through taxation.
If you want to know if one of these politicians is full of B.S. ask them why they proposed $1 billion for this bonding bill. Heck, if $1 billion will create enough jobs to get our economy humming again, why not $2 billion? Why not $10 billion? At $10 billion our economy should be taking off like a rocket. Imagine, we could all look like this guy (or girl). Ask them which hack-economist told them that $1 billion is the "just right" amount to get our economy motoring along again. Perhaps it's this guy. One would think that the amount borrowed would have been prescribed to be a more exact, less rounded number, like $989, 413,607.00.
This path is really nothing new. Heck, this bonding bill is really just a miniature version of the federal stimulus bill passed last year. The Obama administration claimed that if the stimulus was passed unemployment would top out at 8%. Well, here we are, 1 year later, and we're hovering around 9.7%.
Why would we want a mini-stimulus in our own state if the grande version failed so miserably at the Federal level? Because we simply fail to remember and learn from history. This sales technique is really nothing new. Nixon tried it, Ford tried it, Carter tried it, and what did we get? The 70s, that's what we got. Aside from a Hollywood renaissance and Zeppelin, the 70s were nothing to write home about.
Remember, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
Monday, March 1, 2010
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