“I pointed out that the Mexican economy suffers from a lack of rule of law, corruption, pervasive crime, poor provision of public goods, shaky governance, limited economic freedom (although with very high trade openness), and has a dominant culture that rewards evading the system. Many of Mexico’s problems are long term: It doesn’t help that […]
Archive for September, 2005
Sep22nd2005
Sep21st2005
Two economics professors, Russell Roberts and William Polley, debate economic literacy, and what can be done about it here (the link will expire tomorrow).
Maybe we need a new name for what we do when we talk about tradeoffs and unintended consequences, emergent prices, market forces and the seen and the unseen — the whole […]
Sep21st2005
Economic Myths: The 5 Day Work Week And The 8 Hour Day
Published by in Economics, General, Myths and Unions. 38 CommentsHow many times have you been in an economic discussion with someone, discussing the benefits of competition, the power of markets, and the overall benefits of capitalism when someone blurts out that in any competitive system, unions and regulations are necessary, for without them, without their interference, we wouldn’t have a middle class, we wouldn’t […]
Sep21st2005
“Minimum wage laws don’t just regulate those “evil corporations that exploit the labor of poor workers,” they regulate the worker’s legal ability to bargain for a job. Let’s say I have no skills yet and I’d like a job so I can make myself more marketable in the future (and earn more money later). I […]
Sep20th2005
Economics professor Russell Roberts explains:
I think a lot of folks think that Wal-Mart doesn’t offer health insurance to all of its workers because Wal-Mart’s mean or greedy or too interested in profits. A lot of people are mad at Wal-Mart because they pay less than the average wage in the economy.
There’s a simple way […]
Sep20th2005
“Many people who think that government is the answer to our problems do not bother to check out the evidence. But it can be eye-opening to compare how private businesses responded to hurricane Katrina and how local, state and national governments responded”. –Thomas Sowell, Fema versus Wal-Mart
Update: John Tierney of the New York Times has […]
Sep19th2005
I am a bit late on this, but I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity, this is irony at its best. It seems unions are worse than the places they protest:
The shade from the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market sign is minimal around noon; still, six picketers squeeze their thermoses and Dasani bottles […]
Sep19th2005
Rick Santorum, the devout Catholic Republican senator that liberals love to hate, may be defining a new direction for the conservative movement, Reason writes:
Rick Santorum, a second-term Republican senator from Pennsylvania, has written a new book called It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good . The book is worth taking seriously for several […]
Sep19th2005
“Another priority is, as Becker notes, girls’ education, probably the surest route to reducing population growth. But, although heartless, I do not agree that African nations should receive anti-AIDS drugs on a subsidized basis. Drugs that reduce the severity of an infectious disease can actually foster the spread of the disease by making the […]
Sep17th2005
Quote Of The Day
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and Judicial Nominees. 1 Comment“Being against busing and being against quotas is not the same as being against civil rights”. –John Roberts, future Supreme Court Justice
Sep16th2005
First is “The Law” by Frederic Bastiat. The description states, Walter Williams an economics professor at George Mason University put it thusly:
I must have been forty years old before reading Frederic Bastiat’s classic The Law. An anonymous person, to whom I shall eternally be in debt, mailed me an unsolicited copy. […]
Sep16th2005
“Maybe I deeply misread them, but I suspect that even most left-wing professors grade as meritocratically as I do. They may give extra help to students who come to office hours, but if a student spends 2 hours in your office every week and still fails the exam, you can’t let him slide.
To me, this […]
Sep16th2005
For those of you who still think that the certification “The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education” requires of its teachers is necessary, this article is a must read.
Link via Discriminations.
Sep15th2005
Why Rehnquist Was Good For Minorities
Published by in Education, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues), Judicial Nominees and Vouchers. 20 CommentsA few days ago I posted a RIP post in remembrance of Rehnquist and his importance on the Supreme Court. That post than initiated a response from my liberal latino friend Nebur that originally started out in the comments section and eventually spilled over into his blog, here and here, and the comments section […]
Sep15th2005
“It is structural, not demand-side, policies that most influence economic performance over the long term. The experience of reforming economies as diverse as Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Poland is testimony to that. But structural policies take ages to produce effects. The initial consequence is usually a reduction in expenditure, which slows economic activity. […]
Sep14th2005
Are Mexican Immigrants Lowering Your Wages?
Published by in Economics, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and Immigration. 14 Comments…the answer is no!!
David Card, economist at UC Berkeley, has a new study that states:
Mexican immigrants were historically clustered in a few cities, mainly in California and Texas. During the past 15 years, however, arrivals from Mexico established sizeable immigrant communities in many “new” cities. We explore the causes and consequences of the widening geographic […]
