Category Archives: Economics

when vanderbilt beat government corruption

Posted on August 5, 2014 by christopher fisher

From Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal: When Vanderbilt began to organize several small, obscure railroads into what was to become the New York Central system, he had to obtain a franchise from the City Council to permit his railroad, the New … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Goverment, History | Leave a comment

the nirvana fallacy

Posted on July 1, 2014 by christopher fisher

From a post by David Henderson: When people advocate government intervention, they rarely, maybe never, tell us how the incentives will be set up so that government will do the right thing. Think about how asymmetric the argument is. Incentives … Continue reading →

Posted in Econ 101, Economics, Goverment, State Worship | Leave a comment

the black market for legal controlled drugs

Posted on April 21, 2014 by christopher fisher

A while back, I listened to an NPR story about black market drugs. These were normal drugs like Viagra and pimple medication. Because patents and copyrights create a framework for overpriced medicine, black markets in generic knockoffs are thriving. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Econ 101, Economics, Goverment, prices | Leave a comment

caplan on rational irrationality

Posted on April 3, 2014 by christopher fisher
Posted in critical thinking, Economics, Human Nature | Leave a comment

the religion of recycling

Posted on March 30, 2014 by christopher fisher

From an excellent article by Mike Munger: My first experience with the recycling debate was in 2008, when I was asked to keynote a conference in Freemantle, Australia. The conference, called “Australia Recycles!,” was a gathering of recycling professionals and … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, prices, Science | Leave a comment

friedman on cultural differences

Posted on March 19, 2014 by christopher fisher

From an article about the standard of living differences between Scandinavia and the US: A Scandinavian economist once stated to Milton Friedman: “In Scandinavia we have no poverty.” Milton Friedman replied, “That’s interesting, because in America among Scandinavians, we have … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Statistics | 1 Comment

predatory pricing and public schools

Posted on March 14, 2014 by christopher fisher

Predatory pricing is when one organization under-prices their goods or services at below cost in order to drive competition from the field. This is seen by many laymen as an effective tool that works to build monopolies. Without any concrete … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, History, prices | Leave a comment

when krugman was sane

Posted on February 19, 2014 by christopher fisher

At some point in the last decade or so, a very good economist by the name of Paul Krugman morphed into a very bad rhetorician. My own personal theory is that he saw a very lucrative opportunity to fill the … Continue reading →

Posted in Econ 101, Economics, Human Nature, Trade | Leave a comment

property rights are the basis of a civil society

Posted on February 18, 2014 by christopher fisher

From LearnLiberty:

Posted in Economics, Goverment, Trade, videos | 1 Comment

soviet grocery store

Posted on February 18, 2014 by christopher fisher

It is very important to understand the abject poverty that socialism wreaked on its population. Without price incentives, no one produced and no one could buy anything. Lines and shortages were everyday life. Here is video from a Soviet grocery … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Standard of Living, videos | Leave a comment