Democracy is a great form of government–but it doesn’t work for the reasons that most people seem to think it works. There is no inherent wisdom of the people; in fact, the people are pretty dumb most of the time. Study after study has been done indicating that most people have no clue [...]

You know, you stop reading the news for a week to help your mother move, and the world goes to heck in a hand-basket. I saw in the paper this morning that the government was seizing WaMu (with a name like that it’s no wonder they are having problems), that the Bush Administration has [...]

Check out this series of charts detailing the differences between the Obama and McCain tax plans. For one, the information itself is useful in comparing the two presidential candidates. Just as importantly, however, it makes it crystal clear how easily information can be manipulated to the whims of talking heads. After all, [...]

It’s an awful word, but I couldn’t resist using it. In any case, if you have any interest at all in the upcoming presidential election, you should read this article on what Obama’s economic priorities are. Obama has been characterized as both a conservative and a socialist, and the article attempts to explain [...]

I’m normally a big fan of John Stewart, and I also generally have a lot of respect for Ted Koppel. But I was bothered by something that the two of them said yesterday during Koppel’s appearance on The Daily Show. Koppel was promoting a Discovery Channel special that has yet to air on [...]

I had thought a McCain presidency would be bad. Until today, I had hoped that it would be a significant improvement over the Bush Administration. And then, in in a speech at Carnegie Mellon University, McCain released his economic plan. Here are his proposals, minus the stump speech, along with my commentary:

Free Market Economics Assumption #2: A plethora of well-informed consumers.
There are two basic ways that this assumption can be violated in the real world. Most obviously, there can be too few buyers. (At the extreme, if there is only one buyer, this is called a monopsony.) On the one hand, this gives [...]

Unemployment is up. Inflation is rising faster than wages. The dollar is historically week. Interest rates are already low, and can’t be lowered too much further. Personal savings rates are extremely low, while consumer debt is very high–which mean that a short-term boost to consumer spending is unlikely (and unwise). [...]

President Bush sent his proposed 2008 budget to Congress.  I haven’t gone through it thoroughly yet (sorry, I’ve had the flu), but I’m unimpressed by the reviews.  In any case, the budget projects a $400 billion deficit, and that’s before we account for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the proposed $120 billion stimulus package, [...]

At last night’s State of the Union, the biggest news was about earmark reform. The President took on earmark reform with two proposals. First, he told Congress that “if you send me an appropriations bill that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half, I’ll send it back to you [...]