Russell Roberts's Blog, page 1562

Thinking Carefully

A letter to the Wall Street Journal:

Michael Mirmak rightly opposes farm subsidies and tariffs (Letters, April 30).  But in doing so he commits a common error that insults sub-Saharan Africans.  That error is to assume that, if rich-nations' policies artificially take agricultural markets away from Africans, then Africans are thereby condemned to poverty.

In fact, though, agriculture is only one of many possible paths out of poverty.  The people of Hong Kong, for example, did not begin their...

Keeping Immigrants Out (of Jobs)

Here's Steve Landsburg on Arizona's new immigration statute:

Writing in the New York Times, law professor Kris Kobach promises to rebut all the major objections to Arizona's new anti-immigration law and proceeds to ignore all the major objections. Professor Kobach's idea of a major objection is "It's unfair to demand that aliens carry their documents with them", whereas my idea of a major objection is "It's idiotic, hateful and destructive to put obstacles in the way of productive...

Chamber of Horrors

Free markets overwhelmingly benefit, not businesses, but consumers.  Alas, we as consumers, unlike we as producers, are so diverse and numerous that we as consumers are rationally ignorant of the too-often negative effects visited upon us as consumers by government policies – policies often supported by businesses.

An Entrepreneur and the Minimum-Wage

A.G. (who asks me to use, in this post, only his initials) is a regular reader of Cafe Hayek.  He's 28 years old and is an entrepreneur in Charlotte, North Carolina.  His firm employs 25 people, 21 of whom are low-skilled workers.  A.G. just sent this memo to his employees:

To All Team Members:

The schedule for next week has been posted. You may notice that hours have been cut back on your schedule. This is across the board, not just you. I don't want anyone to think they've done something...

Welcome to the future

In Brad Paisley's song, Welcome to the Future, he sings about the glories of innovation and ties it to the evolution of the civil society. OK, he wouldn't use those words, but you get the idea:

When I was ten years old

I remember thinking how cool it would be

When we were going on an eight-hour drive

If I could just watch TV

And I'd have given anything

To have my own Pac-Man game at home

I used to have to get a ride down to the arcade

Now I've got it on my phone

Chorus:
Hey, glory, glory...

Lou Dobbs on Stossel

Tonight on Fox Business's Stossel, June Arunga, Tom Palmer, John Stossel, and I tangle with protectionist Lou Dobbs.  (Dobbs, by the way, denies that he's a protectionist, but this denial is akin to Bill Clinton's denial that he had sex with Monica Lewinsky.)

Tonight's show – taped on April Fools' Day – airs at 8pm EDT on Fox Business; it's rerun again at midnight EDT.

Here's John Stossel's most-recent plug for tonight's show.

American Saturday Night

In these xenophobic times, I just heard Brad Paisley singing American Saturday Night a song that came out last year. The closest thing you'll hear to a pro-trade, pro-immigration pop song:

She's got Brazilian leather boots on the pedal of her German car

Listen to the Beatles singing Back in the USSR

Yeah, she's goin' around the world tonight

But she ain't leavin here

She's just going to meet her boyfriend down at the street fair

It's a French kiss, Italian ice
Spanish moss in the moonlight
Just...

Simple

Bryan Caplan weighs in on the cause of the crisis:

Arnold ably identifies two main narratives about the 2008 financial crisis.  But he neglects the simplest narrative of all: Once in a century, a once-in-a-century mistake happens. The end.

Bryan's half right. It is the simplest narrative. But I'm not sure what he means by "once in a century." We've had a whole bunch of financial crises around the world in the last 30 years. So his simple explanation has to be altered to:

"Once in a while, and...

Insiders vs. outsiders

Over at EconLog, Arnold Kling comments on my essay on the crisis. Arnold has an unusual way of categorizing opinion and viewpoints that often helps me organize my thinking. In hs comment he talks about insiders vs. outsiders as a more useful way to categorize different views on financial reform than left vs. right. Then he writes:

My conclusion is that the goal of the Insiders is to preserve the status quo as much as possible, and the "financial reform" is a thinly-disguised effort to...

All you need to know

This is supposedly from a powerpoint presentation (HT: Drudge) to US Army Generals to help them make sense of Afghanistan. But relabel it and it could be anything. It could be our health care system after ObamaCare is put in place. Or our current health care system with all its distortions. Or the connections between people making a pencil. In the latter case, it works even though we don't understand it. In the other examples, it's a mess because someone is actually arrogant enough to think h...