Month: November 2009
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Bush/McCain Economic Advisor Sez: Raise Taxes
Douglas Holtz-Eakin was Chief Economist for the Council of Economic Advisers from 2001-2002. He was Director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003-2005. He was John McCain’s chief economic advisor during the presidential campaign. In the WSJ, he says Obama “should call on Congress to pass a comprehensive reform of our income and payroll tax…
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GDP and Corporate Profits: Smoke and Mirrors?
Justin Fox has pointed out tellingly that not only was Q3 GDP growth overstated–it’s already been revised from 3.5% (annualized) down to 2.8%, and is likely to be re-revised again some more (downward, of course)–it also includes some profound anomalies regarding corporate profits. In short–surprise!–it’s the financials that are doing all the moving and “improving.”…
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Reason and Intuition: Is There Really Any Difference?
My sister just sent me the link to this discussion by Razib Khan on reason and intuition–timely, because it refers to Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives by Michael Specter, who I just saw (and spoke to briefly) when he spoke at University of Washington last week…
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Will the Right Kill the Republicans? Ask the Whigs.
I’m as curious as anyone about the long-term effects of hard-right Republicans on the Republican party. Will their zealotry result in the party’s rupture and collapse? This led me to look at the two significant national parties from America’s history that have collapsed and disappeared: the Federalists and the Whigs. The Federalists came apart because…
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Does Having Kids Make You Happier?
I can’t even begin to match the thinking and research that Bryan Caplan has done on the subject of kids and happiness (he’s writing a book titled Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids), but I can add my two bits, which generally support everything he says. Short story, the research generally says “no.” Over large…
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To claim “objectivism” at 20 is predictable. To claim “objectivism” at 60 is plain idiocy.
Apologies to Churchill for the ripoff. No apologies to Ms. Rand. I remember quite clearly at age 13 saying to my mother and my sister, “why can’t people just be objective?” Pretty amusing in hindsight. Related posts: We Should Make Janitors Work Longer Because Lawyers Are Living Longer Two Thirds of Tea Partiers Want to…
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Teenage Moms and Welfare Incentives
Bryan Caplan has done yeoman’s duty for us all by reviewing “all the major research on the response of fertility to economic incentives.” He finds a “striking contrast” between two types of literature: In the “birth subsidy” literature, researchers usually find fairly large effects in the expected direction. In the welfare literature, in contrast, most…
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Musings on Efficient Market Theory
Justin Fox, author of The Myth of the Rational Market, is in an interesting interchange with Eugene Fama, patriarch of efficient-market theory. Which led me to some musings on the subject. I find that a great deal of the discussion of EM theory is befuddled because the discussors don’t distinguish clearly between different but related…