After a couple of responses to my first post on the solution to the problems of inner cities, I decided I ought to delve a little deeper. I am responding here to two similar but different types of responses. One asks what can Christians do? The other is a bit irritated at my alleged “Gospel-without-solutions” […]
Archives
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Inner Cities, Part 2: A Partial Response
29 Apr 2015
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The United States Supreme Court heard another important case Wednesday, April 22, Horne v. Department of Agriculture. Under a 1937 New Deal era Marketing Order scheme, the Federal government gets to confiscate outright whatever percentage of a raisin crop is deemed necessary to keep raisin prices high, or high enough. Henry Horne, a raisin grower […]
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Another Historical Distortion, by Bill Maher
09 Feb 2015
Bill Maher tells authoritatively that capitalism did not produce a middle class. It was actually worse than that. I quote extensively from his statements on “Real Time” on HBO because you have to read it to believe someone said it: “so what’s happening is, the Democrats are proposing to nibble around the edges of our […]
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The Social Justice Crowd Part Two
04 Dec 2014
I was happy to see some response to my earlier blog on the “Social Justice Crowd.” Here I would like to offer some clarifications and responses to the responses. Let me say first that Bert Wheeler gave an excellent rejoinder regarding one of the major benefits of enterprises such as Walmart: It substantially increases the […]
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Coke vs. Pepsi V
09 Nov 2014
The debate between the economists reminds me of a long-past humorous saying about the dismal practitioners (only teasing there): “If you laid all the economists of the world end-to-end they would never reach a conclusion.” I guess they still haven’t regarding this question of whether the Republicans and Democrats are essentially different or the same. […]
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In a provocative post, Berean Bert Wheeler suggested that there is not much difference between Republicans and Democrats, at least economically. I understand the urge to think this, and I certainly agree given my frustrations with both parties; “a pox on them all.” But to say there is no real substantive difference between the parties […]
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Another Great One Dies
05 Nov 2014
Gordon Tullock died the other day. He was about 92. For those who didn’t know, Tullock was a founder of the Public Choice School of economic thought, famous for its use of microeconomic principles applied to problems of government, in particular government failure. Tullock was known as the “inventor” of the concept of rent-seeking, known […]
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Coke or Pepsi?
04 Nov 2014
I was able to attend the Free-Market Forum weekend before last. FMF is a group of Christian professors gathering to learn more about free-market principles and economics. While I do not think it was part of his planned talk, one of the speakers said that Republicans and Democrats reminded him of Coke and Pepsi – the basic […]
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A “Sider” Sandwich
28 Oct 2014
I was sitting in my office yesterday struggling to stay awake while I prepared a class on international balance of payments. I glanced over at my bookcase and saw this “Sider” sandwich. Ron Sider’s 1977 classic title: Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (this particular copy is the 1984 second edition) was wedged in […]
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Bastiat is rolling over in his grave, and shredding whatever remains of his attire on the shards of all the broken windows, because Mr. Obama’s former Treasury Secretary and the former President of Harvard, Larry Summers, says there is a free lunch with intelligent spending in infrastructure by the government. He cites the recent report […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach