An alien morality

I love reading Paul Krugman’s NY Times columns and especially the comments that follow because they offer a fascinating glimpse of certain moral principles that are completely alien to my personal philosophy. It is like going into a country where they seem to speak the same language; yet their words mean completely different things than [...]

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Manzi on global warming

While I am not an expert on global warming, the available literature seems to indicate that when everything is considered, the damage of global warming is probably not as high as the damage of the proposed solutions to global warming. That’s of course not to discount the danger or reality of the phenomenon — global [...]

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Assorted links

 While GM and Chrysler are in their last throes, Ford is trudging on. Obama may have fired GM’s CEO and told Chrysler exactly what to do but he has had no such luck controlling Ford. The company has refused offers of taxpayer life support and believes it can not only survive this recession but in [...]

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The problem with the word ‘nationalization’

Alex Tabarrok makes a good point: Notice how the term nationalization confuses the issue.  First, it suggests government ownership of the banks which would indeed be a disaster.  People in favor of free markets will rightly want to avoid any such outcome but ironically it’s the current situation of “wait and see,” and “protect the [...]

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Peter Schiff: “Stimulus will lead to unmitigated disaster”

I present below, without comment, a recent interview of Schiff (investor, Austrian economist, accurate predictor of the current crisis) where he talks about the economic crisis and the stimulus. He predicts hyper-inflation worse than anything we have ever seen if we keep going down this path.

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Some good signs from the Obama administration

• Tom Daschle — big government healthcare lord with plenty of tax issues  – is out. Obama admits he screwed up. Refreshing. • He might actually kill the terrible protectionist clause from the stimulus. I certainly did not expect this.  • He has selected an excellent nominee for the secretary of commerce post, it’s a Republican who once [...]

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Don’t tell the truth

An interesting post from Robin Hanson on the stimulus bill. Here’s an excerpt (emphasis mine): Wise taxpayers who get stimuli tax rebate checks should mostly save them, realizing that future taxes must rise to pay for those checks.  For similar reasons, wise taxpayers should also spend less upon hearing about government spending increases.  So with [...]

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Keynesianism = trickle down effect?

I was at a birthday party today when some of my friends started talking about the economic crisis and the stimulus. This is, more or less, how the conversation went. Person A : Well, once the stimulus is passed there should be more grants because the NSF is getting so much money. Person B : [...]

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More Krugman nonsense

[Post edited] From his latest column: [W]rite off anyone who asserts that it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money. Here’s how to think about this argument: it implies that we should shut down the air traffic control [...]

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The Obama stimulus package

Tyler Cowen writes: Yes, 40 percent of the Obama stimulus package will be a tax cut.  It’s already a talking point that “the Democrats have lost their nerve” but the reality is not so devious.  Obama wishes to deliver on his pledge to cut taxes (always electorally popular) and upon close inspection the economic team [...]

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Anecdotes and proposals on healthcare

I missed this post by Andrew Sullivan from a while back. One reason I’m a conservative is the British National Health Service. Until you have lived under socialism, it sounds like a great idea. It isn’t misery – although watching my parents go through the system lately has been nerve-wracking – but there is a [...]

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The worst article on the economy you will ever read

Arianna Huffington’s latest article condemning laissez-faire as a failed philosophy hits all the right lefty notes. Parts of it almost seem lifted from Obama’s election rhetoric. Not wholly unexpected from a woman who once proclaimed that she only texts three people: her two teenage children and Barack Obama. Actually, Huffington’s piece is so bad that [...]

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You should be opposed to an auto bailout irrespective of your ideology

My position on the auto bailout is simple. The big three should be allowed to go bankrupt. This is true even if one ignores the moral hazard and other intrinsic costs of bailing out private firms. Bankruptcy now is, quite simply, the best course of action not just for the taxpayer and the rest of [...]

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Bjorn Lomborg on global warming

Set aside 30 minutes today to watch this wonderful presentation by Bjorn Lomborg on global warming. Lomborg is no libertarian — he is a liberal who favours a welfare state and strong redistribution through taxation — and  indeed, there is no mention of any intrinsic value of freedom and property rights in his presentation. His [...]

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Obama’s sensible economics

So far, Obama has proved to be a pragmatic centrist as far as economic policy is concerned. His decision to give quiet burial to the ridiculous windfall profits tax idea is further evidence that he didn’t mean much of the shrill left-wing rhetoric he used during the campaign season. That’s heartening.

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