Month: April 2012
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Three years, no budget
The U.S. Senate hasn’t passed a budget for three years.
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Wichita to hold public hearing, again
The City of Wichita must conduct a public hearing for a second time, another example of a long line of mistakes made by the city in the administration of its policies.
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Myth: The more complex a social order is, the less it can rely on markets and the more it needs government direction
As society becomes more complex, reliance on voluntary market exchange becomes more — not less — important. A complex social order requires the coordination of more information than any mind or group of minds could master.
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Kansas state spending is not, itself, a good
In the debate over reducing and eventually eliminating the income tax in Kansas, those who oppose income tax reduction say it will simply shift the burden of taxation to others, in the form of sales and property taxes. This is true only if we decide to keep spending at the same rate. We could cut…
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Myth: Markets don’t work (or are inefficient) when there are negative or positive externalities
Negative externalities such as air and water pollution are not a sign of market failure, but of government’s failure to define and defend the property rights on which markets rest.
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Tax costs block progress in Kansas
If we in Kansas and Wichita wonder why our economic growth is slow and our economic development programs don’t seem to be producing results, there is now data to answer the question why: Our tax costs are high — way too high.
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Myth: Markets cannot possibly produce public (collective) goods
The public goods justification for the state is one of the most commonly misapplied of economic arguments. But many goods that are allegedly impossible to provide through markets have been, or are at present, provided through market mechanisms — from lighthouses to education to policing to transportation, which suggests that the common invocation of alleged…
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Wichita’s bailout culture
The Wichita City Council will consider a bailout of a real estate development. If the council takes this action, it is just one more step in a series of bailouts granted by the city, and it sets up expectations that the city will continue bailouts, creating a severe climate of moral hazard.
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Wichita teacher labor kerfuffle illustrates the problem
A dispute over teacher working conditions in USD 259, the Wichita public school district, provides a window into the workings of the public school system and its problems. There is a way out, but it’s not happening in Kansas.
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Myth: Markets only work when an infinite number of people with perfect information trade undifferentiated commodities
Abstract models of economic interaction can be useful, but when normatively loaded terms such as “perfect” are added to theoretical abstractions, a great deal of harm can be done. For the state to be the agency that would move markets to such “perfection,” we would expect that it, too, would be the product of “perfect”…
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Intrust Bank Arena finances: The worst news is hidden
The true state of the finances of the Intrust Bank Arena in downtown Wichita are not often a subject of public discussion. Arena boosters promote a revenue-sharing arrangement between the county and the arena operator, referring to this as profit or loss. But this arrangement is not an accurate and complete accounting, and hides the…