Economics

Philipp Lenssen links to an article by Paul Graham on How to Do What You Love. It's about finding and doing work you enjoy. I'm all for that. The whole reason for taking a job is to earn money to spend on things that make you happy. So if you've found a job that makes you happy, it's like getting paid more. People who get paid more are usually willing to work longer and … [Read more...] about Do What You Love

On the LLP mailing list, Josh Kelly writes: Does artificial government support of select industries (subsidization) lead to net economic gain on either a local, state, or federal level? I'm engaged with a friend over this issue, and while I don't believe that any economic gain is incurred, he countered that with subsidization of an auto plant, the economy is stimulated in that … [Read more...] about Why Not Subsidize a Gigantic Corporation?

This is how the free-market economist bloggers at Marginal Revolution ask for donations: Efficiency says that goods with zero marginal cost should have a zero price but without prices not only is the incentive to produce diminished but so is information about what to produce. [...] Donations allow prices to be set at [marginal cost] while at the same time providing a (noisy) … [Read more...] about Free-Market Begging

Today is Black Friday in the United States, the start of the Christmas shopping season. It's also Buy Nothing Day, a day of protest against consumerism promoted by Adbusters magazine. But if they're against consumerism, I wish they'd explain what they want to replace it with. If obtaining and consuming goods and services is not the purpose of our participation in the … [Read more...] about Buy Nothing Day

The government of Hawaii just made a terrible mistake: In an effort to gain some control over what motorists pay at the pump, Hawaii on Wednesday became the first state in the U.S. to set caps on the wholesale price of gasoline. Economists have observed that setting below-market price caps on a good causes that good to become scarce. It has nothing to do with producers being … [Read more...] about Fighting High Prices With Scarcity