Cowen on Catalonia

At MR, Tyler Cowen has a rather strong reaction against an economist who supports Catalan secession: He taught me Ph.d Micro I at Harvard, so it’s too bad he wants to wreck both Spain and Europe, and for so little in return. Didn’t one of his theorems suggest this was a bad idea? It’s not …

This is journalism?

This is the current headline on the front page of the New York Times online: Mitt and Disaster Relief: Hurricane Sandy calls for a federal response. Not donated canned goods. Sure, the Times has an editorial view and the right to speak its mind.  But, seriously?

Decriminalization in Portugal

"Ten years ago, Portugal decriminalized all drugs. One decade after this unprecedented experiment, drug abuse is down by half."

Jonah Goldberg Channels Bastiat – Hurricane Sandy Edition

Goldberg tweets: All I can think about is how all of this destruction will make NYC so much richer according to Paul Krugman. How soon before some very ill-educated journalist writes a story about the economic benefits of Sandy?  I give it less than a week. For the original argument against the broken window fallacy, …

When Obamacare Really Kicks In

Most of the PPACA's most controversial provisions were backloaded until after this election. Unless Romney wins the presidency and Republicans at least make it close enough in the Senate that they can pick off a moderate Democrat or two on a roll-call, these provisions will start to kick in next year. Avik Roy explains: In …

Sunday Morning Quotation – Pinker on How the Commercial Spirit Helps Beat Racism

In this piece on Celtics legend Red Auerbach, Steven Pinker makes a great point about markets that is too rarely noted (outside the Chicago School that is): "Auerbach’s color-blindness surely came in part from principle and integrity, but it just as surely derived from one of the great virtues of the commercial spirit. Racism, because it favors …

A new level of creepy

Just when you thought the Obama as Cult Figure movement couldn't get any creepier, the Obama campaign releases a new ad with Lena Dunham talking about how special the "first time" should be.  [No, I'm not going to provide a link]. Essentially the ad is saying that voting for Obama is a sexual experience.  (And …

From the Comments (Thought Experiment on Freedom)

From "A Thought Experiment on Freedom," I thought these comments were worth highlighting. FreeDem: Freedom is more than marginal tax rates and the monetary value of different policies. Is there a way to calculate it though? I don’t know. I think of something like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we need a hierarchy of liberty/freedom that …

Bertrand Russell on Rousseau

This is the boldest statement from a serious thinker that I've read today (from Russell's 1945 book The History of Western Philosophy): Ever since his [Rousseau's] time, those who considered themselves reformers have been divided into two groups, those who followed him and those who followed Locke.  Sometimes they cooperated, and many individuals saw no …

Team Obama’s Chilling Defense of Killing Abdulrahman al-Awlaki

Conor Friedersdorf offers up some justifiably tough words in response to Obama senior adviser Robert Gibbs' glib defense of the drone assassination of 16-year-old, Denver-born American citizen, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (essentially: "he should have chosen a different father"): Again, note that this kid wasn't killed in the same drone strike as his father. He was hit …

George Will’s Recent Quip on Defense Spending

George Will had a strange (for him) piece on the debate and the rise of the "Come home America" view on foreign policy that didn't quite hang together and that led me and one of my wiser friends to say, "if only."  But it did have this wonderful line:  Romney thinks America should have "a military second to none," which …

Lessons in the Political Duopoly

My oldest child was telling me about how he is going to vote for Romney in his elementary school election.  My youngest said he was voting for O'Romney.  Of course, he was just confused about the name of the Republican candidate; he's very young so it was an innocent mistake.  But perhaps he had a higher wisdom …

A Thought Experiment on Freedom

Imagine two countries, each the size of the U.S. In one of them, the average tax rate is 1% (of income) lower than the other, but unlike the other it randomly selects ten innocent individuals for execution each year (perhaps ritual human sacrifice!). Assuming personal income of $12 trillion like the United States, the lower …

Liberty Fund Video

Liberty Fund has historically talked softly but carried a very, very large intellectual stick.  With its growing web presence, Liberty Fund has become much more publicly visible over the last decade.  It now has great online content at the Online Library of Liberty, The Library of Economics and Liberty, and its newer Library of Law and Liberty, not to mention its wonderful EconLog economics blog.  Of course, Liberty Fund …

Paging Candy Crowley

Does anyone else wish that Mitt had parried Obama's call to check the facts by saying that the President's friend Candy Crowley wasn't in the room tonight to help him out? BTW, see Sven from earlier in the week here in this excellent post.

Nor is Dwight Eisenhower at the Foreign Policy Debate

Dwight Eisenhower in his Farewell Address (1961): A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in …

John Quincy Adams Is Not At Tonight’s Debate Either

John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821: And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the older world, the first observers of mutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to inquire, what has America done …

George Washington Is Not At The Debate Tonight

From George Washington's Farewell Address (1796): Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, …

Police Shoot Naked Person, Again

News out of Tampa, Florida is that another naked person has been shot by the police.  Unlike in the previous case of the young University of South Alabama student, this woman appears to have been "armed."   I haven't been able to find any more details about what that means (gun? knife? crowbar? etc).  Maybe this woman was brandishing a gun or …

Sunday Morning Quotation – On the Electoral College

Given the possibility - admittedly slim - of Romney winning the popular vote but losing in the Electoral College, Republicans may not feel as sanguine about the EC today as they were following Bush-Gore in 2000.  But Republicans should not let mere partisanship sway them from their support for an institution that provides many functions, not least reminding us that states are meaningful political entities.  Here …

Early Voting

Here are some early 2012 voting numbers around the country, courtesy of the U.S. Election Project: Total ballots cast in the United States:  3,571,075 Total ballots cast in Ohio: 502,737.  This represents 8.7% of the 2008 total vote in Ohio (which went for Obama).   Total ballots cast in North Carolina: 387,721.  Of those, 49.4% were cast by Democrats, …

Out of context

Remember how the President and the MSM were upset about the whole "You didn't build that" comment was taking the President's words out of context?  I've seen the larger context and hold with those who think that, even in context, Mr. Obama's words sound pretty bad. But apparently it is OK for the president to …

Life Without Capitalism

I hope our readers will find this new video from The Fund for American Studies worth a look (see below).  It makes a good point about how life without capitalism (and the "greed" that is often associated with it) wouldn't be as sweet as many imagine it might be.  Indeed, the benefits of capitalism are so ubiquitous in …

Romney vs. Obama (and Crowley apparently)

Three quick reactions: 1.  Romney blew the Libya part of the debate.  But can anyone explain why debate moderator Candy Crowley felt the need to jump in to defend President Obama during the debate?  And didn't she get it wrong?  Apparently Republican (and Democratic) preparation of the intellectual battlespace before the debate didn't induce Crowley to …

Scottish Referendum Deal Reached

British Prime Minister David Cameron and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond have reached a deal on the upcoming Scottish independence referendum. It looks as if the SNP have gotten what they wanted in several respects: 16- and 17-year-olds will be allowed to vote. The referendum will be held in late 2014. While the Electoral Commission …

Somin on Romney vs. Obama

Ilya Somin has a detailed and thoughtful post contrasting Mitt Romney and Barack Obama from a libertarian perspective. He comes down tentatively on the side of Romney overall, but acknowledges that more pacifistic libertarians might reasonably support Obama as the lesser evil. The most informative section for me was that on judicial nominations. In particular, …

Chart of the Day (edited)

Edit: The source for the donations data is opensecrets.org; the source for the personal income data is the BEA.

2011-2012 Not Good for the Regime Uncertainty Thesis

Whatever merits the regime uncertainty thesis has in explaining the length of the Great Depression (and they may be significant), it cannot explain the stagnant recovery of 2009-2012.

Get Serious Sully

Andrew Sullivan can't really honestly believe this, can he?: And after Romney's convincing Etch-A-Sketch, convincing because Obama was incapable of exposing it, Romney is now the centrist candidate, even as he is running to head up the most radical party in the modern era. Given his long-standing worship, adulation, and love of Obama, Sullivan has become …

Gravity vs. the Electoral College Map

Sean Trende has an interesting take on the pull of "gravity" in the Presidential race.  Take home: Unless some kind of shock happens (like the 47% speech), gravity has been pulling Obama down such that the election is going to be extremely close and could even favor Romney slightly.  This would seem to be consistent with certain political …

Market Seems to Believe Romney Would Repeal Obamacare if Elected

...Judging from the the post-debate health care stocks performance. Of course, the assumption would have to be that the GOP both retains the House and takes the Senate, also unlikely. Context: I've had debates with people who say that Romney would quickly go back on that promise once elected, but I just don't see it. …

My Bloggingheads Conversation with Robert Farley

Robert Farley of the University of Kentucky and Lawyers, Guns, and Money had a "diavlog" with me on bloggingheads.tv. We covered Pileus, the Conor Friedersdorf essay on why he can't vote for Obama, libertarianism and foreign policy, and secessionism. This was my bloggingheads debut, and we hope to do more of these in the future. …

Sunday Morning Quotation – Alexander Hamilton on Human Nature, War, and Designing Institutions

Federalist #34 – Alexander Hamilton: To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude, that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway, than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting …

Best New Yorker Cover Evah?

And remember, I'm not a big Romney fan.  But this cover says a lot without saying anything.

You Can Always Count on Biden to Offer Up Some Good Quotations

Here are the key bits according to RCP: "Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars. Guess what? Yes, we do," said Biden. "That's called fairness where I come from," Biden added. See it yourself in all of its class warfare taxiliciousness:

Samuel Smiles and Horatio Alger Would Like This

Must Libertarians Be Amoral?

A recently published paper by Ravi Iyer and coauthors on the "libertarian personality" has been getting a great deal of attention. To recap the findings, Compared to self-identified liberals and conservatives, libertarians showed 1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding principle, and weaker endorsement of all other moral principles; 2) a relatively …

New Hampshire – “Galt’s Gulch”?

Carla Gericke, the President of the Free State Project, had this to say at the movie premiere of Atlas Shrugged, Part II: "I'm from the Free State Project and we're building Galt's Gulch." For this and other thoughts on Rand and the film, see Matt Welch from Reason here:

Do the Presidential Debates Matter?

Apparently the media "spin" on the debates does according to this study by scholars from Arizona State University: We demonstrate that the news media's “spin” or analysis following the last presidential debate in 2004 influenced citizens' evaluations of the candidates. The media's “instant analyses” in the twenty-four hours following the debate was decidedly one-sided, favoring President …

The 2012 Presidential Election Has Begun

Below you'll find some interesting 2012 Presidential election data from the United States Election Project at George Mason University.*  This may surprise some readers since there has not yet been a single Presidential candidate debate, the official in-person election day is over a month away, and relevant and important data and events could be released/happen …