Hayek, rationality, scientism, Ted Kaczynski, Zizians
Reflections from Europe
Pope Francis is setting a course for the Church that risks subverting and degrading it and that harms both the spirit and the wellbeing of much of humanity. Early Christianity was essentially a church of and for the poor and the oppressed. However, it did not seek to rouse them against the rich and the .. MORE
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“People often do not seem to take opportunity cost into account in the way more traditional economics would predict. It appears that we value gains differently from losses.” There’s this concert. Green Way is coming to town. To hear those great songs from American Dolt performed live you are going to stand in line, camping .. MORE
An Economist Looks at Europe
Donald Trump is no gentleman; his vulgar remarks on women, his slanderous aspersions on Mexican immigrants, his intolerant condemnation of the critical media, and his aggressive pronouncements on foreign affairs during the Presidential campaign and his early tenure in office all leave an unpleasant aftertaste. There may have been some softening via the Vice President .. MORE
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Economic and Political Philosophy
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Cost-benefit Analysis
Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings
econtalk-podcast
Until the end of WWI, the Middle East as we know it didn’t exist. No Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, or Iraq. Instead, there was the Ottoman Empire, whose dissolution using an arbitrary line on a map set the region on a course of upheaval that’s still with us. Listen as historian James Barr speaks with EconTalk’s Russ .. MORE
econtalk-extra
How can antebellum racial violence and intolerance in America help explain the disappearance of bankers in post-Soviet Russia??? This “mystery” is at the heart of this episode in which EconTalk host Russ Roberts welcomes economist Lisa Cook to discuss her research. Cook had a notion that violent barriers to innovation might exist in both these .. MORE
Economic and Political Philosophy
Wokeness seems to embody two features: on one hand, collectivist or groupist ideals; on the other hand, a rejection of reason and truth. Interestingly, the political opponents of wokeness in America and the world tend to reproduce these same two features—with, on the right, more emphasis on collectivist nationalism than tribal groupism. Both strands of .. MORE
Foreign Policy
US ‘Democratic’ Allies Are Becoming Increasingly Authoritarian By Ted Galen Carpenter, Antiwar.com, February 17, 2025. Excerpts: A recent example of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of another democratic country appears to have taken place in the Republic of Georgia. According to Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili, USAID spent $41.7 million to support its preferred candidates in the .. MORE
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Biographical Remarks on Arthur Bruce Smith (1851-1937) by David M. HartBruce Smith was an Australian Barrister (a lawyer who is qualified to argue before a judge) and a Member of the Parliament of New South Wales when it was still a self-governing colony before it became one of the states in the federal Commonwealth of .. MORE
THE writer of this book was temporarily attached to the British Treasury during the war and was their official representative at the Paris Peace Conference up to June 7, 1919; he also sat as deputy for the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Supreme Economic Council. He resigned from these positions when it became evident .. MORE
Book Review of Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events.1 by Robert J. Shiller. And if you wish to adorn, borrow the metaphor from something better in the same genus, if to denigrate, from something worse. —Aristotle, Rhetoric III, 1404b It is an odd experience to be reading Robert J. Shiller’s .. MORE
Book Review of What We Owe the Future, by William MacAskill.1 An issue that has long divided scholars is the question of how much weight to give to the interests of future generations, especially when making decisions of significant public importance. On one side of this issue there have been those like the University of .. MORE
VIDEO
Recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Milton Friedman (1912-2006) has long been recognized as one of our most important economic thinkers and a leader of the Chicago school of economics. He is the author of many books and articles in economics, including A Theory of the Consumption Function and A Monetary History .. MORE
VIDEO
The twentieth century witnessed the unparalleled expansion of government power over the lives and livelihoods of individuals. Much of this was the result of two devastating world wars and totalitarian ideologies that directly challenged individual liberty and the free institutions of the open society. Other forms of expansion in the provision of social welfare and .. MORE
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Conversations with some of the most original thinkers of our time
The Reading Lists by Topic pages contain some suggested readings organized by topic, including materials available on Econlib. Brief reviews or descriptions are included for many items.
Supplementary materials for popular college textbooks used in courses in the Principles of Economics, Microeconomics, Price Theory, and Macroeconomics are suggested by topic.
These free resources are appropriate for teachers of high school and AP economics, social studies, and history classes. They are also appropriate for interested students, home schoolers, and newcomers to the topic of economics.
It was, according to accounts filtering out of the White House, an extraordinary scene. Hank Paulson, the U.S. treasury secretary and a man with a personal fortune estimated at $700m (£380m), had got down on one knee before the most powerful woman in Congress, Nancy Pelosi, and begged her to save his plan to rescue .. MORE
[Editor’s note: some of the data have changed since this article was written in 1992. The overall structure of the unemployment insurance, however, has remained intact.] The United States unemployment insurance program is intended to offset income lost by workers who lose their jobs as a result of employer cutbacks. The program, launched by .. MORE
Of the array of creative financing techniques that came of age in the eighties, one that emerged from that tumultuous decade with its reputation intact is asset securitization. Asset-backed securities enable depository institutions, finance companies, and other corporations to “liquefy” their balance sheets (i.e., raise cash by borrowing against assets) and develop new sources of .. MORE
-Adam Smith
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