How Dikembe Mutombo’s Career Illustrates the Case for Free Trade
Finally, when Dikembe Mutombo came to Georgetown University in 1987, what was his career plan? Answer: to become a doctor and return to the Congo and help his people, who…
Friedman’s smashing success
In the late 1940s, Milton Friedman was considered an important economist who had made significant technical contributions. At the beginning of the 1950s, however, he moved away from Keynesian economics…
Knowledge, Reality, and Value Book Club Replies, Part 2
All of the last set of comments were directed at Huemer, but I’ll add a few comments of my own. Anon: 1.To my mind, part of the problem with questions…
The Everyday Miracles on the Web
Every once in a while I pinch myself at my good fortune in being alive at this time in history, with the web making things so much easier in so…
The Apologies of Repeal
Whenever government repeals a bad policy, my first reaction is amazement. Then gratitude. Swiftly followed by indignation, because no matter how bad the repealed policy was, the government almost never…
Individualism and Western Civilization
In his 1944 book The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek, a future (1974) Nobel economics prize winner, spoke about “the individualist tradition which has created Western civilization” (p. 73 in…
In praise of “death panels”
As far as I know, neither political party has ever advocated “death panels”, that is, panels of experts that would deny Medicare coverage to FDA-approved treatments that don’t pass a…
There are no Solutions, only Trade-offs.
What is the outlook for black Americans today- is the black experience glass half full or half empty? Is racial discrimination the root of all problems in Black America? In…
The Centrality of Exchange
Most government interventions consist in forbidding adult individuals (or their voluntary associations) to freely engage in acts of exchange: securities laws, antitrust laws, minimum-wage laws, maximum prices (like in “price…
When should NGDP be unstable?
Over time, the labor force (employed plus unemployed) usually tends to grow at a pretty stable rate. In addition, hourly wage rates are sticky, or slow to adjust to shocks.…