Russell Roberts's Blog, page 1549

Thugs?

The normally calm Michael Barone accuses the Obama Administration of thuggery. While some of his complaints are just incompetence or political maneuvering, it's an interesting list of charges either way.

The Music of Adam Smith

I dare say that nowhere in the world today is there a more creative and insightful scholar of Adam Smith's work than my colleague Dan Klein.  Enjoy notes and harmony of this new paper by Dan and GMU econ PhD student Michael Clark.

Sumner on neoliberalism and growth

This week's EconTalk is Scott Sumner talking about why some countries grow faster than others. His basic argument is that starting around 1980 (and maybe a little before) there was what he calls an embrace of neoliberalism–a movement toward privatization, lower tax rates, and deregulation. He argues that while growth slowed in the United States in this period, it slowed worldwide and slowed less than in other countries that failed to liberalize or that liberalized less.  (I speculate in the p...

Fringe Thinking

Here's a letter to the Boston Globe:

Derrick Jackson wants government to mandate paid maternity and paternity leave for workers ("A gift that pays off for new dads," June 19).  He writes as if the costs of mandated paid leave will be fully absorbed by employers: workers will get an additional valuable fringe benefit at the expense of employers and, hence, employees will suffer no downside.

What a strange notion.  To see why, suppose that Mr. Jackson weren't an opinion writer but, instead, a...

Some Links

Two of my outstanding colleagues over at the GMU School of Law – Todd Zywicki and Josh Wright – expose, in today's Washington Times, several of the flaws that underlie Sen. Dick Durbin's attempt to justify government control of debit-card interchange fees.

Jim Peron reminds us how well free minds and free markets work – so well that we take this working for granted.

The Denver Post's David Harsanyi really energizes me.

In yesterday's Washington Times, Bob Higgs worries that reaction to the BP...

Paul Samuelson Misread Hayek

Here's a letter to the Wall Street Journal:

Justin Lahart accurately reports that, as recently as last year, the late Paul Samuelson dismissed F.A. Hayek's book The Road to Serfdom as alarmist and wrong: "Sweden and its Scandinavian neighbors are among the most socialistic countries in the world, as Mr. Hayek defined them, Mr. Samuelson pointed out.  'Where are their horror camps?' he [Samuelson:] wrote" ("The Glenn Beck Effect: Hayek Has a Hit," June 17).

But Mr. Samuelson profoundly misread...

The final tally isn't in yet

In this recent post, I mentioned that that the final bill for the TARP bailout might not be the $50  to $100 billion that Alan Blinder mentions. Yes, many banks paid the money back because many banks were healthy and the government forced them to take the money. But not all banks are doing so well. Reuters reports (HT: Drudge):

More than 90 U.S. banks and thrifts missed making a May 17 payment to the U.S. government under its main bank bailout program, signaling a rising number of lenders...

Untitled

Here's a letter to the Washington Post:

Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman propose legislation that would, as you report, "tax carbon dioxide emissions produced by coal-fired power plants and other large polluters" ("Climate bill faces long odds, despite Obama speech," June 16).  This bill is called the "American Power Act."

Hmmm.  Because it's unclear how taxing major sources of power will promote American power, this bill's title is misleading.  Pondering this fact reveals that too many...

Hayek on a roll

The Road to Serfdom having been #1 for a while, thanks to Glenn Beck,  is holding strong at Amazon at #2.

In a couple of weeks, I'll be doing an EconTalk podcast with Bryan Caplan on TRTS and Eugene Richter's Pictures of the Socialistic Future. Feel free to read either or both in advance of the podcast.

It's also not a bad time to read my application of Hayek's insights into emergent order and prices to the American economy and prosperity.

And it is always a good time to watch the Keynes-Hayek...

Notes from a diehard

Alan Blinder, writing in the WSJ, argues that the economy is in much better shape than it was when Barack Obama came into office:

Of course, that does not prove that the president's policies caused the unexpected improvement. Maybe our luck just turned, and the economy would have done even better under a laissez-faire approach. (A few diehards still argue that FDR's policies worsened the Great Depression!)

Here is Jonathan Bean, summarizing Robert Whaples survey of economists and historians:

In...