Just read this article about the Bangladesh factory disaster this morning. Truly terrible what happened, however the usual progressive/statist smugness comes to the surface pretty quick in the comments “oh see what the free market causes, we need government to save us from these evil people.” Here’s my response on the board to that sentiment [...]
Category: Economic Fallacies
May 10 / 2013
A tax by any other name
And so it has come to pass – nearly 100 years since the post office ceased Sunday mail delivery (dropped in 1912 primarily due to religious and workers rights reasons) the United States Postal Service will cease Saturday mail delivery later this year. This time the reasons are financial rather than ecclesiastical. The Postal Service [...]
February 18 / 2013
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Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems
It has recently come to my attention (thank you George Warren) that the economist Steve Keen has proposed a solution to our economic woes: the government should give people money to pay off their debts. According to Keen it is the high level of private debt (about three times that of annual US GDP ) that [...]
January 07 / 2013
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“Wimpy” Governance
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Words to live by for those in government. For example, the word “surplus” is supposed to denote the result of consuming less than one receives. But that is not the [...]
December 26 / 2012
Warning, Warning!
“New Jersey has a tough price gouging law to ensure that profiteers will not take unfair advantage of people at their most vulnerable” Governor Chris Christi Unfair advantage – so who exactly is the Solomonesque arbiter of that which is fair and unfair? In this case the states of New Jersey and New York. And [...]
November 13 / 2012
Keynesian Coin Toss
Hurricane Sandy wrought not only terrible destruction this past week, it likewise whipped a few economic fallacies to the surface. Chief among these was the unwarranted attacks on the “price gougers” and the stunning ignorance of those pontificating on the “prosperity through destruction” meme. I shall defer my defense of the gougers and turn my [...]
November 05 / 2012
Category
Big government is the problem, Current events, Economic Fallacies, Insurance, Redistributive fallacies
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Cutting corners
“And so you’ve got higher administrative costs, plus profit on top of that. And if you are going to save any money through what Governor Romney’s proposing, what has to happen is, is that the money has to come from somewhere.” – President Barack Obama. President Obama made the above remark in last week’s (10/3/12) [...]
October 09 / 2012
You didn’t put that fire out
Nestled deep within President Obama’s infamous “you didn’t build that” speech is a subtle statist sentiment that has escaped the slings and arrows of his detractors. Perhaps because, being statist themselves, they agree with it. He says: “The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because [...]
September 10 / 2012
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The Mortgage Interest Myth
There is a persistent myth that the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction (HMID) does the following: (a) promotes home ownership by (b) providing a financial benefit to the middle class taxpayer. That’s the funny thing about myths; they aren’t true. In fact, the truth here is the exact opposite. The HMID has not expanded homeownership in [...]
September 04 / 2012
Hey man, you owe me!
President Obama’s now infamous “You didn’t build that” speech offered up two worldviews that betray his social-collectivist tendencies. The President engaged in a non-sequitur fallacy in his effort to establish the validity of two falsehoods by invoking a truism that is best embodied in the quote of Isaac Newton, “If I have seen further, it is [...]
August 06 / 2012
