Readers of this blog know I’m critical of the Obama administration generally on economic matters, nevertheless, as we say from my home state of Arkansas, “even a blind hog can find an acorn every now and again.” The Democratic party has been generally hostile toward free trade for most of my life, while Republicans are […]
Archives
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Like a stopped clock being right twice a day, Mr. Obama is right on Trade Promotion Authority
07 May 2015
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Inner Cities, Part 2: A Partial Response
29 Apr 2015
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” […]
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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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It’s Earth Day!
22 Apr 2015
Everyone, it is Earth Day. I remember painting garbage cans and lids with peace signs as a Sophomore in high school in the early 1970s to celebrate this hallowed day–at least for the radical environmentalists. Look, I support clean air and water–though not the eradication of CO2, which I breath out and trees and plants […]
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Critics of capitalism or markets are not too difficult to find. They come mainly from the ideological Left, but some also come from what appears to be a non-Leftist position of postmodernism. I actually believe most postmoderns lean Left, some violently, but for now I will let that go. Finally I have found a fairly […]
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Book Review on the Industrial Revolution
07 Apr 2015
It has been a long time since I have written anything on books I am reading. I think I have a winner in a relatively new book by Joel Mokyr entitled The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1850, published by Penguin Books and Yale University in 2011 and 2009. Now I know the […]
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The Minimum Wage as Maximum Trouble
07 Apr 2015
McDonald’s just announced a wage increase for its employees to ten dollars per hour. But the reaction was not gratitude but protests by union-led workers who are advocating for fifteen dollars per hour. The debate on the wage rate is tied to the equally contentious debate about inequality of income. I am not wading into […]
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Long-time marijuana advocate Willie Nelson is reportedly going to produce his own marijuana for sale, called Willie’s Reserve. Seems like Willie Weed would be more accurate, but hey…what do I know about marketing (or marijuana for that matter). As an aside, I went to a Willie Nelson concert circa 1980 while living in southern […]
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The Minimum Wage Conundrum
26 Mar 2015
The concept of minimum wage has its origins in the United States in a rather forgotten purpose. Minimum wage was first proposed as part of the legislation that created the National Recovery Administration that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal created in 1933. FDR pursued the NRA because he was embracing the new economic theory of progressive […]
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Charles Murray at Cedarville University
13 Mar 2015
The ideas of most humans are formed by their basic worldview combined with their existential circumstances. I believe this fairly self-evident statement applies in particular to the talk given by Dr. Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute at Cedarville University, Thursday night, March 12. Murray is a brilliant man and his talk was a […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach