Economics

John McCain has famously said he doesn't know much about economics. A recent AP wire story by Glen Johnson illustrates as much: The presumed Republican nominee on Monday proposed a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, … [Read more...] about Don’t Know Much About Economy…

Kip is making fun of an op-ed by Robert Crandall in the New York Times, and rightly so. Consider the first paragraphs of Crandall's missive: Thirty years ago this fall, Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Since then, America’s airline system has greatly deteriorated. I suppose that's one way of looking at it. Another way to look at it is that … [Read more...] about What Competition In Aviation Means To Us

Frederick W. Kagan has an article in National Review Online that attempts to refute some of the antiwar arguments about Iraq. I haven't read the whole thing---It's a huge piece that covers a lot of ground, and some of it may even be correct---but there's a pretty glaring example of the broken-windows fallacy in the first section: The "$3 trillion war." Simplistic economic … [Read more...] about Broken Windows and the Iraq War

I've been trying to make sense of what the Federal Reserve has been doing with Bear Stearns. My usual source for smart thinking about financial issues, Kip Esquire, is so far silent, so I'm trying to figure this out myself. It's not going well. The argument against government bailouts of private businesses is that it's a bad idea for the government (even in the form of the … [Read more...] about What’s Up With Bear Stearns?

Over at Simple Justice, Gritsforbreakfast left this comment: My college major was economics, and I was downright angry when, after learning all the theory, it became clear that nearly every "assumption" economists said make free markets "work" was actually, demonstrably false. E.g., people have perfect information, make rational choices that maximize their self-interest, etc.. … [Read more...] about Why I Love Economics