Or, How A Bunch of Econ Bloggers Got Fooled By A Poor Graph
Or, Mood Affiliation For My Bias That Most Academic Research Is Low-Value Rent-Seeking Data-Massaging Justification For More Low-Value Rent-Seeking Data-Massaging
Yesterday, Greg Ip blogged at The Economist about a new paper on banking crises. Someone analyzed 147 banking crises from 1970 to 2011 and found that September was an unusually bad month.
Continue reading Why is 2008 the worst year for banking crises?
I saw an article in a business magazine the other day about the inevitability of the coming inflation and how to prepare for it from a business perspective. There have been a lot of voices over the last few years predicting harmful levels of inflation, usually as a consequence of the Federal Reserve’s recent interventions in the economy. (Here are a couple classic examples from doom-pop site Zero Hedge.)
It’s fashionable among many conservatives to claim that Obama is destroying the economy. Some even claim he’s doing it on purpose. But there are a number of reasons conservatives should actually be happy about what’s happened to the economy since Obama was elected.
Continue reading Why Conservatives Should Love Obama’s Economy
A month or two ago I got a book series on The Old West, and I’ve been reading parts from The Alaskans. For the most part, this history of the settlement and exploration of Alaska highlights the hard-working individualist spirit of nineteenth-century Americans. But when the coast dwellers attempt to explore the interior with their limited resources, they come across many obstacles, and progress is slow – until the federal government shows up:
Continue reading Thank Government For Something: United States Geological Survey
Hi, I’m Barackitt Obromney, and I’m running for President.
Fortunately I’m not just going to leave you with some reasons for pessimism. Here are the latest reasons for optimism, involving marijuana, patent trolls, government land, state revenues, and oil production:
I like focusing on good things that are happening in the world today, but I have to be honest about concerning things that are going as well. Here are a few of the latest, involving feeding the homeless, spying drones, and drug-resistant diseases:
Yesterday I offered my opinion that Wisconsin’s recall vote was evidence that “taxpayers of all political stripes are beginning to realize” the excesses of government benefits to public sector unions. It turns out Wisconsin wasn’t Tuesday’s only evidence. There were also ballot proposals in California. As NPR reports:
Continue reading Even Californians Are Rejecting Backward Government
Last night, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker won his recall election by a larger margin than his original election in 2010. Today there will be a lot of pundits telling you exactly what this means for Wisconsin and the future of the country, but I just want to try to recap what happened and tell you my reactions.
For years we’ve been hearing about the looming global food crisis caused by climate change and overpopulation. But the world continues to refuse to cooperate. This morning, Bloomberg reports the world is likely to have a third consecutive record year for rice production:
Farmers will harvest 466.4 million metric tons in the 2012-2013 season, boosting stockpiles by 0.7 percent to 104.9 million tons, the largest since 2001-2002, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture…
“There is enough supply to meet all the demand in the world,” said Concepcion Calpe, a senior economist at the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization, where’s she is also secretary of the Rome-based group’s inter-governmental body on rice. “There will be ground for a further slide in prices.”
