Archive for the 'Myths' Category

Feb23rd2010

Credit Card Economics

When Obama proposed his credit card regulations, economic theory predicted what would happen: harm those with less than perfect credit scores (primarily the poor). Bryan Caplan, professor of economics at George Mason University, explained it best when he wrote:
” When you make lending to high-risk people less attractive, the result is not worse terms for […]

Nov6th2009

Dont Copy Europes Healthcare

So says a European:
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Sep1st2009

Quote Of The Day

“About 10 percent of infants die in their first year of life in Africa — still shockingly high, but considerably lower than the European average less than 100 years ago, let alone 800 years past. And about two thirds of Africans are literate — a level achieved in Spain only in the 1920s.” - Charles […]

Aug4th2009

Quote Of The Day

“IRS data shows that in 2007—the most recent data available—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following […]

Jul28th2009

Buy American Is Meaningless

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Why the “Buy American” campaign is just another union power grab and should be ignored.

Jun22nd2009

Quote Of The Day

“The young interviewer, Conor Clarke, owes a huge debt to Milton Friedman, who did more for him and for every healthy American male under age 54 than [liberal economist] Samuelson ever did. I’m referring, of course, to Friedman’s “nutty libertarian” crusade against the draft. The draft ended in 1973 and among the leaders who pushed […]

Jun5th2009

The Clinton Years vs The Bush Years - A Pet Peeve I have

Casey B. Mulligan, professor of economics at the University of Chicago, made a comment that he should know is disingenuous, he wrote:
the “big spending Democrat” stereotype is incorrect — government spending / GDP fell under Clinton and increased under Bush.
This comparison, used to argue that when it comes to spending there is no difference between […]

May26th2009

Quote Of The Day

” When you make lending to high-risk people less attractive, the result is not worse terms for low-risk people who have been profitable all along.  The result is that high-risk people get less credit.  They used to be able to get credit despite their credit-unworthiness by paying extra; if the law forbids this, why lend […]

May20th2009

When Doing Nothing Is Better

The New York Times art section ran an article on differing views of the great depression: its causes and the affects public policy had on it.
Richard Vedder, an economist at Ohio University, made this interesting observation:
Mr. Vedder playfully offered another analogy: the recession of 1920. Why was that slump, over and done with by […]

May12th2009

“The Rich” Vs “Government”: Who Should Get More Money?

Scott Sumners, a professor of economics at Bentley University, in one of his lengthy posts, made this parenthetical statement:
[BTW, Bill Gates essentially taxed middle class consumers all over the developed world, and is giving almost all of the money to the disadvantged in poor countries. That’s something governments don’t do, and yet for his “monopoly […]

Jul21st2008

Quote Of The Day

“In evaluating the need for greater financial regulation, one should also not forget that the American economy greatly outperformed the European and Japanese economies during the past 25 years. Might that not be related in part to the fact that the United States led the way with major financial innovations like investment banks, hedge funds, […]

Jul17th2008

Quote Of The Day

“The impetus to tighter regulations varies from sector to sector, although there is a growing belief that many activities are insufficiently regulated. Obviously, the current turmoil in the financial sector is stimulating many proposals to regulate extensively various types of financial transactions. Yet it is not obvious that the problems in the financial sector resulted […]

Jun18th2008

Quote Of The Day

“Now, in fact, I agree that people overleveraged themselves in the last eight years, encouraged by ultra-low interest rates; that is now showing up in the DSR, which is now rising toward 15%. But I do not agree that this is the sort of financial holocaust that some argue. The housing bubble peaked in late […]

Apr30th2008

The Argument Against Regulations

Bacon-wrapped hot dogs are common in downtown Los Angeles and especially in Mexican border cities. Tijuana, for example, has a vendor at almost every corner. Well now, apparently, Los Angeles is trying to ban the cart sale of these very delicious bacon-wrapped hot dogs.
As a huge fan of bacon-wrapped hot dogs (I’ve eaten more […]

Apr25th2008

Quote Of The Day

“What they are saying is that in zip codes where lots of folks were turned down in 1996, you see lenders approving many more loans, and at lower risk spreads in 2001 through 2005, fueling the home price bubble. The lower risk spreads tells me that this was not predatory lending, but the opposite…It sounds […]

Apr18th2008

What Is A Libertarian?

Do you want to know what a Libertarian really believes in? Listen to the father of modern day Libertarianism, Milton Friedman define it without all the distortions and misrepresentations from those who claim to know what libertarianism is.
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