Tag: Economics
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Efforts to Regulate ‘Wild West’ Markets are Long Overdue
A Christian Science Monitor article Efforts to regulate ‘Wild West’ markets are long overdue contains a number of misstatements. For one thing, characterization of the American West as “wild” in the sense that mayhem prevailed, and that life and property were not safe, is not correct. An article in the Journal of Libertarian Studies titled…
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Drug Runaround: Solved by Universal Health Care?
A letter writer in the July 12, 2008 Wichita Eagle has issues with his health insurance coverage, and wants us to discard our present system in favor of universal health care coverage. Mr. Ronald Voth of Halstead (a candidate for the Democratic party nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives for the fourth district of…
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Where’s Leadership on Oil Speculation?
In the July 12, 2008 Wichita Eagle, Kenneth James Crist of Wichita blames oil speculators for ruining the U.S. Economy, writing that politicians should “do something positive to halt the rampant speculation in the stock market and oil futures that is really driving these runaway prices. All it really amounts to is tremendous greed on…
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The Threat of Social Progressives
In the July 5, 2008 Wichita Eagle, a Mr. Chet Syres of Hutchinson contributes a letter promoting the virtues of liberalism, proponents of which he now wants us to call social progressives. I remind Mr. Syres that leftists stole the terms “liberal” and “progressive” from the classical liberals. From For A New Liberty by Murray…
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Wichita Business Journal: Please Explain the Wichita School Bond Impact
Mr. Heck must be relying on reporting from his own newspaper, for a few months ago it printed the article “Brooks: Bond issue possible in spring” (December 28, 2007 Wichita Business Journal) in which Brooks and Joe Johnson, head of the school district’s architectural firm Schaefer Johnson Cox Frey Architecture say that the bond issue…
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Price Controls Will Harm Iowa
In the article Price Controls Create Man-Made Disasters we learn that although the Iowa attorney general has imposed Iowa’s anti-price-gouging rule (Price-gougers beware, Attorney General says), the likely effect will be “shortages of needed supplies, long lines, delayed repairs, and, perhaps, increased incivility.” The price system is very good at allocating scarce resources. That’s certainly…
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Wichita’s Galichia provides what government health care doesn’t
A recent editorial in The Wichita Eagle (Dr. Bill Roy: Universal care is most economic, efficient) contains several mistaken impressions. One may be disproved by recent developments in Wichita.
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Wichita School Bond Issue: Is Economic Impact Real?
I wrote to Janet Harrah, the lead author of this report, with some questions. One of her responses, not to any particular question I asked but just by way of general explanation, was this: “These studies are designed to estimate the impact of expenditures for a particular activity. These studies are not designed to determine…
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A Believer in Good Government Programs
A Mr. Greg Abbott of Clearwater, Kansas makes the case in the June 13, 2008 Wichita Eagle that there are many good government programs: the interstate highway system, the post office, the air traffic control system, police and fire departments, etc. I believe the writer makes a huge error in logic by assuming that because…
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Tax Abatements in Wichita
A few months ago I spoke before this council asking that you not grant a tax abatement. At that time I was told that granting a property tax abatement doesn’t have any impact on City of Wichita spending. I found this quite remarkable, that new homes and buildings can be built but not consume any…
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Investment in Wichita Public Schools
A letter writer in the April 27, 2008 Wichita Eagle makes the case that investment in USD 259 (the Wichita, Kansas public school district) has a good return. By way of comparison, the writer argues that the Wichita airport, having been built with public funds, represents “an investment return.” Whether it represents a good return…
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Wichita school bond issue economic fallacy
I have no doubt that the school bond issue in 2000 was a tremendous benefit to Mr. Johnson’s firm. I’m sure Superintendent Brooks, in some way that I don’t understand, benefited from the bond issue, too. As to the rest of the community, however, the benefit claimed by these two men doesn’t exist. It never…