Tag: Economics
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Problem of low wages not easily solved
The great appeal of a higher minimum wage mandated by an act of the legislature is that it seems like a wonderfully magical way to increase the wellbeing of low-wage workers. Those who were earning less than the new lawful wage and keep their jobs after the increase are happy. They are grateful to the…
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The Candlemaker’s Petition
You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for domestic industry.
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Henry Hazlitt explains Frederic Bastiat, or, a broken window really hurts no matter what the New York Times says
This simple lesson from Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson explains so much, yet so little people realize and apply the truths explained here. Even trained economists like Paul Krugman, writing in The New York Times, fail to recognize the truth of Bastiat’s lesson as explained by Hazlitt when he remarked that “the terror attack…
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The Shine Is Off Corn Ethanol
Our economy is so intertwined and interdependent that it is impossible for the government to guide it in any direction without setting off a long chain of consequences. This is another example of the folly of centralized economic planning.
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Economic fallacy supports arts in Wichita
Recently two editorials appeared in The Wichita Eagle promoting government spending on the arts because it does wonderful things for the local economy. The writers are Rhonda Holman and Joan Cole, who is chairwoman of the Arts Council. I read the study that these local writers relied on. The single greatest defect in this study…
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I, Pencil: A Most Important Story
I, Pencil is one of the most important and influential writings that explain the necessity for limited government. A simple object that we may not give much throught to, the story of the pencil illustrates the importance of markets, and the impossibility of centralized economic planning.
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Hillary Clinton and Milton Friedman: The Contrast
“The unfettered free market has been the most radically destructive force in American life in the last generation.” — First Lady Hillary Clinton on C-Span in 1996 stating her troubles with the free market “What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them…
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Williams’ law: the vital role of profits
Here’s Williams’ law: Whenever the profit incentive is missing, the probability that people’s wants can be safely ignored is the greatest. If a poll were taken asking people which services they are most satisfied with and which they are most dissatisfied with, for-profit organizations (supermarkets, computer companies and video stores) would dominate the first list…
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Gambling study flawed. Ask casino workers.
Did you know that a study used to promote the economic development benefits of gambling in Wichita has casino workers paying for a large part of the social costs of gambling?
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Economic fallacy alive in Kansas at Docking Institute
There really is no free lunch. What Kansans spend on university repairs can’t be spent on something else. Should Kansas spend the money that the Regents are asking for to repair the universities? Because it fails to recognize the secondary effects of the proposed spending, the analysis put forth by the Docking Institute doesn’t answer…
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The Williams rules
The kind of rules we should have are the kind that we’d make if our worst enemy were in charge. My mother created a mini-version of such a rule. Sometimes she would ask either me or my sister to evenly divide the last piece of cake or pie to share between us. More times than…
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How To Judge the Worth of Ethanol
From The Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2007: “Ethanol gets a 51-cent a gallon domestic subsidy, and there’s another 54-cent a gallon tariff applied at the border against imported ethanol. Without those subsidies, hardly anyone would make the stuff, much less buy it — despite recent high oil prices.” Remove this subsidy and the tariff.…