First, Edward Ring has a worthwhile column at American Greatness today. It’s largely about internal contradictions in Democrat policy aspirations, but it’s valuable for all that. Pointing out the lunacies in Democrat proposals is particularly important today. Got to keep kicking them if you want to keep them down. It’s the title of …
Category: economics
May 14 2025
Sutton’s Law Applies
At the end of a brief piece about President Trump’s recent EO about drug prices, Blazing Cat Fur says this: I had no idea that Big Pharma made 2/3 of its profits from the US who are only 4% of the world’s population. I didn’t know that either, but I find it …
Apr 02 2025
The Theater Dynamic
Some knowledgeable folks see the movie theater teetering at the edge of a “doom loop:” Hollywood is at risk of entering a “negative feedback loop” with fewer wide movie releases and a shrinking theater footprint combining to squeeze box office revenue, a veteran media analyst says. In his annual assessment of the …
Mar 29 2025
The Gyrations Are Making Me Dizzy
Time was, the Left was all-in for coercive population control. Their argument was essentially Malthusian: too many people / dwindling resources. The notion that people should be free to decide how many children they want was brushed aside: “We have to save us from ourselves!” (Yes, “saving us from ourselves” is a recurring …
Mar 23 2025
Barren Trees
Today, the third Sunday in Lent, we read from Luke chapter 13: There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered …
Mar 21 2025
Growth Always Comes At A Price
Courtesy of Knuckledraggin’, we have this reflection on a greatly changed America: “It wasn’t always like this.” I looked up from the litter I was collecting in the park. Discarded trash was a constant battle in the city in which we lived before returning home. It became so bad that my wife …
Sep 24 2024
Well Whaddaya Know?
Freedom works: BUENOS AIRES—For years, Argentina imposed one of the world’s strictest rent-control laws. It was meant to keep homes such as the stately belle epoque apartments of Buenos Aires affordable, but instead, officials here say, rents soared. Now, the country’s new president, Javier Milei, has scrapped the rental law, along with …
Aug 24 2024
The Unchanging Nature Of Wealth
I know, I know: the title “gives the game away.” And it does. But perhaps not in its entirety, Gentle Reader. I restrained myself from applying the title I really wanted to use. Breck Dumas of Fox News tells us: It takes more to be viewed as rich in the U.S. this …
Aug 20 2024
Commie-la’s price controls
After I enlisted and left the area, Dad finally told his old job, with it’s toxic boss who slept her way to the top, to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut and went out to find a new job. Dad was a computer and math whiz. He put his resume out there, and …
Jul 11 2024
An Inevitable Schism
Doctrines, regardless of the subject matter, are usually inflexible. Sometimes that’s not a virtue. Today in the Wall Street Journal, there’s an article about the divergence on economic policy between two wings of the Republican Party: There are, of course, widely aired disagreements over abortion and the war in Ukraine. But a …
Jul 10 2024
Insanity Or Deliberate Political Malfeasance?
You really have to wonder: After securing the majority of seats in Sunday’s election, the newly formed left-wing government in France has revealed plans to impose a ninety percent tax on its “wealthier” citizens. The left-wing coalition known as the New Popular Front (NPF) shocked French politics this past weekend when it …
Mar 26 2024
Extrapolation Is Easy…
…but realism is hard. Isn’t everyone familiar with the investment flacksters’ line that “past performance is no guarantee of future returns?” Aren’t we all aware that trends become more dubious the longer they continue? Haven’t we seen enough trends implode “unexpectedly,” and all too often ruinously? The quotes at the opening of …
Mar 22 2024
Inversions
The C.S.O. does most of our grocery shopping, which insulates me against certain data that would otherwise arrive regularly in my awareness. However, now and then we go together to a “warehouse” style discount store for items we know to be available there in bulk, usually less expensively than at a commonplace supermarket. On …
Feb 15 2024
Bad Buys
[This piece first appeared at Liberty’s Torch V1.0 on April 6, 2017. I was missing and mourning my late friend Joe – if you haven’t yet, you’ll “meet” him in this piece – and decided that, considering Americans’ rising fears of an economic collapse, a second look at the division of labor is warranted. …
Feb 03 2024
Simple Contexts, Simple Logic
It doesn’t take long for the observant student of economics to realize that the whole field is about incentives, disincentives, and human decision-making within their grip. There’s the Law of Supply and Demand, the Law of Diminishing Marginal Value, and Coase’s Theorem. All else is about particular cases and exceptions that, largely, prove not …
Aug 18 2023
What Is Seen And What Is Not Seen
If memory serves, Frederic Bastiat was first to use that phrase. He employed it in a discussion of what’s usually called the “broken window fallacy,” an important example of how choosing not to look at some of the consequences of an event or a decision can fatally warp one’s perception of economic reality. Henry …
Jul 28 2023
Ask Not…
…why there is poverty, saith John Wilder: I find it sort of hilarious that economists spend a lot of time fretting about what causes poverty. I love economics, but often think that they create pocket universes to study that have no real connection to the here and now. I think that’s called sniffing …
Jun 11 2023
Headline Writer Lacks All Critical Sense
Film at eleven? All right, I suppose that’s too tongue-in-cheek even for me. Still, this headline (and the article that follows) got me shaking my head: NASA to voyage to ‘golden asteroid’ worth $10,000 quadrillion this fall $10,000 quadrillion? $1019? Even in 2023 dollars, that’s a whole lotta bread. But what, precisely, …
Dec 27 2022
Hot Flash: Newton’s Third Law Still In Effect!
Congress hasn’t managed to repeal it: Leftist activist Nina Turner recently posted a simple tweet calling for a $25/hr minimum wage, variations of which she frequently posts. $25/hr minimum wage. — Nina Turner (@ninaturner) December 22, 2022 Which is hilarious considering she only paid her canvassers $15/hr. That’s the “action.” Now …
Jul 12 2022
The Lowest Steps
Mike Miles has provided another thought-provoking graphic: The “message” could hardly be more obvious. But what about its wider applications – that is, its applications to various aspects of social and economic mobility? Give it a moment’s thought while I finish my breakfast. *** We often hear of “social climbers,” usually …
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