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Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it’s...
Yes, Kent, I would. Or at least Steven Hawking would. In a new documentary for the Discovery channel, he makes the worrying argument that …extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that...
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“It’s a free country”
David Henderson hypothesizes about why the phrase “it’s a free country” has changed in useage: First, when I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, not many people around me considered that a sassy reply....
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Markets Not In Everything: Murderabilia Edition
In accordance with their ban on “murderabilia”, eBay has removed an auction of the van used by Dr. Kevorkian to perform assisted suicides. The top bid at the time was $3,400. I am surprised that an...
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A Fine Line Between Art and…. Poll Dancing?
A New York tax appeals board has rejected the claim that poll dancing should be exempt from sales tax on the basis that it is “dramatic or musical arts performances”. I suppose one must draw a line...
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Rounding Up the Children of Illegals
Rep. Duncan Hunter wants to deport American citizens who are the children of illegal immigrants: “Would you support deportation of natural-born American citizens that are the children of illegal...
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A Greece Among Us?
Everyone from households, to corporations, to foreign nations are declaring bankruptcy, and now some U.S. cities are looking to get into the fun. According to the Financial Times, there were ten...
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Taking it to the tweets
Conor Friedersdorf is my minor internet hero. I found his recent twitter campaign to persuade fans of talk radio blowhard Mark Levin that Levin should not be trusted to be somehow badass. Is this not...
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Does being short make you more likely to be a criminal?
A new NBER paper argues yes: …we investigate whether an individual’s height is associated with criminality. Recent economic studies have uncovered positive associations between height and labor market...
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Can you believe…
…that in this day and age, our President’s stated policy can be “that American farmers should have protection from market disruptions and weather disasters.” That is from the administrations “guiding...
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#BestNewsweekCoverline
People are mourning the death of Newsweek with twitter meme roasting: the best Newsweek cover line that never was. Josh Green and Matt Cooper got it started with “What Would Jesus Eat? The New Science...
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Nanny State Watch: Raw Eggs Edition
…”cocktail cops” from the New York City health department busted New York cocktail hotspot the Pegu Club for using raw eggs in a fizz earlier this year. This was “[despite] warnings printed on the...
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Great (Numbers of) Minds Think…Too Much
According to Yahoo News, a group of four people protested a spelling bee in Washington DC. The cause for the dissatisfaction? The complication of the English language: Roberta Mahoney, 81, a former...
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Avatars
Pretty interesting peice on avatars in New Scientist: For now, Lifenaut relies on a series of personality tests, teaching sessions and uploaded personal material such as photos, videos and...
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Is Chinese Drywall Driving Foreclosures?
Daniel Indiviglio finds 74 studies nestled within the House and Senate financial reform bills. One of these is titled “the effect of drywall presence on foreclosures”. I dug into the house bill and...
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God and politics
Matt Steinglass at the Economist laments that voters require politicians to be overtly religious, and is even more bothered by laws that do so. He is specifically creeped out by an (unconstitutional)...
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South Carolina Pols: The Gift that Keeps on Giving
From Political Wire "No white folks have an ‘e’ on the end of Green. The blacks after they left the plantation couldn’t spell, and they threw an ‘e’ on the end." – South Carolina State Sen. Robert Ford...
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The greatest lead paragraph in the history of journalism
I know everyone has seen this story and I have nothing to add, but I have to point out that this is the greatest opening paragraph for a newspaper article I have ever read in my entire life: A...
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Looking for economic rationales in finreg
Anyone care to offer an economic rationale for this? …the bill gives the Federal Reserve the ability to set a limit on the fees that stores must pay to accept debit cards. The catch here, though, is...
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Glenn Beck was right
I laughed at him; mocked him even. He warned us that our government was run by totalitarians who were preparing to come crashing down upon us, taking away our precious freedoms. Sure, I warned people...
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Follow Us on Twitter
Do you like short quips of nerdy econo-talk? Want to keep up with the bleeding edge of posts on this blog? Wish to interact with Karl, Adam, or Niklas in a completely public fashion that feels...
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No, you shouldn’t criminalize credit… wait, are we seriously having this...
Daniel Indiviglio has a strange post at The Atlantic that I have been trying to ignore, but the website editors there keep putting it on their front page in a box called “Things you might have missed”....
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BitCoin and the “Wild West”
Tyler Cowen recently linked to a Wikipedia article for BitCoin; a decentralized, peer-to-peer (crypto-)currency. I originally found the idea quite confusing (but I’m not a master of p2p technology),...
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Markets, Please.
In the spirit of the fourth of July, I’m going to take some time to draw attention to a local (Omaha, NE) matter stemming from the holiday. “The fireworks being sold were over three times the legal...
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Senate Hearing: Useless
I, personally, learned next to nothing about the monetary policy stance of the nominees to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors at today’s Senate hearing. Janet Yellen, Peter Diamond, and Sarah...
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A Liquidity…What?
Seems that Paul Krugman no longer “believes in” liquidity traps: The passivity of the Bank of Japan offers an object lesson. The BOJ is now under political pressure? Why? Because it still sees no...
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What is No-Growth Economics?
Kevin Drum, who is not a no-growth economist, analyzes what a no-growth economy would look like. This is….a wee bit rosy. If we all worked two days a week, I suspect the real result would be more time...
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You Don’t See This Very Often…
…at least not in public. For labor, the recalculation story says that employment is a by-product of patterns of specialization and trade. Someone who openly admits that labor is an (unfortunate)...
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Proof of Concept
I often make the claim that there is no dearth of imagination in the ways in which humans can find to utilize other human labor. Many times, I use this fact to argue against protectionists. I also use...
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Life or Art Imitates Something.
I am a very enthusiastic reader and follower of conspiracy theories. The crazier the better. I particularly enjoy CT’s that have to do with large networks of secret societies that work toward World...
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Firms Don’t Innovate, Markets Do: Tax Edition
From the LA Times: Here we go again. Another legislative session, another well-funded campaign waged by Intuit Corp. to abolish California’s free, innovative and wildly popular electronic tax filing...
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The best way to wake up from a car crash
I’d never heard this story before; it is perfect: On January 26, 2006, [Joaquin] Phoenix was in a car accident in Hollywood on a winding canyon road that flipped over his car. The crash reportedly was...
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Irony, Thy Name Is…
This should make Arnold Kling feel excellent: “Buy new with $1,000 down,” the advertisement says, the words resting atop a trim green clapboard house offset by a bright blue sky. [...] The...
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How Crazy Is Tom Tancredo?
Tom Tancredo is apparently within 4% percentage points of the lead in Colorado’s Gubernatorial race. Yes, he’s the guy who raised his hand really fast in the 2008 presidential debate when asked “who...
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Spot the Dumb Rules
First, I’m sorry about my extended absence from blogging, both to my co-bloggers and audience. My schedule has been very full, and I’ve been battling mysterious fatigue and abdominal pain which makes...
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Steven Levitt
David Henderson goes after Steven Levitt’s full throated endorsement of the nanny-state. Levitt’s remarks: It wasn’t until the U.S. government’s crackdown on internet poker last week that I came to...
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Quick Note on Bernanke
I’m headed off to a conference, but I just wanted to voice my disgust with Ben Bernanke quickly. Here is what I gathered from his speech in Jackson Hole: 1. The Fed has the tools to offset shocks to...
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A Lump of Cruelty
Alabama law now makes it a crime for an illegal immigrant to solicit work and makes it legal to detain people indefinitely on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. The law allows police to detain...
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Partying Like it’s 2008 All Over Again
From the Washington Post: The European Central Bank offered new emergency loans to banks on Thursday to help them through the turmoil of the government debt crisis, but decided to keep interest rates...
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TGS vs RATM
Android app + machine that mixes drinks. As Paul Krugman notes in his “futurism article“, most things that symbolic analysts do can and will be automated. Add to that category (unsurprisingly)...
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We Live in Perplexing Times
President Fisher is confused. From Reuters Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, an outspoken policy hawk, added that he was perplexed by Wall Street’s continued preoccupation with the possibility that...
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