Category Archives: economics

Spontaneous Order

Everywhere we look we are surrounded by orderly systems that arose spontaneously and continue to operate in the same way. The universe, regardless of how it started, operates according to rules that no matter their complexity are knowable and fixed. The laws of physics are unchangeable; it’s our understanding of them that’s subject to alteration….


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On Corruption

Lord Acton’s famous line about the relationship of power and corruption needs no more than its first phrase. The two are conjoined twins. Under the right circumstances all of us are likely to succumb to the corrosive effect of authority. Some occupations have it as part of their job descriptions. While corruption is ineluctably part…


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The Case Against Children

Fertility rates are below replacement levels in every country in the developed world except Israel. While the leaders of these countries view this decline with alarm, it represents a logical response to the realities of the modern world. Below are a few reasons for this infertile phenomenon. My discussion is pertinent only to the modern…


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COVID-19 Six Months In

It’s just about half a year since we recognized that the coronavirus had taken residence in the US and just about everywhere else. We took a while to realize that the bug was going to stay longer than The Man Who Came to Dinner. Though epidemics have been a feature of human existence ever since…


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Einstein, Insanity, and Models

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” This quotation attributed to Einstein, was said by him (if he really said it) in the context of quantum mechanics, where doing the same experiment repeatedly does give different results. But in the macro world the same experiment properly performed does give…


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Corona Craziness – Why We Surrendered Without a Fight

Genghis Khan was the greatest administrator who ever lived. He always knew when to temper justice with brutality. Anonymous How did we reach a social point where most of the world would accept suicide as a remedy for a serious, but not unmanageable, contagious disease? We’ve endured plagues, famines, natural disasters, wars, and a Pandora’s…


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Coronavirus – From Panic to Reality

It is slowly dawning on the world and the US in particular that we are suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. We’re on life support. Our economic survival is 50-50, probably worse. How did we get here and where is here? I’ll start with the newest information which should come as no…


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Why Walmart is Doomed

The title is hyperbole. I don’t think Walmart will go out of business, rather it will fall victim to what the great economist Joseph Schumpeter called creative destruction. In the mid 20th century General Motors was the exemplar of American industrial excellence. In the first decade of the next century it went bankrupt and was…


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Back to Work by March 30: A Coronavirus Imperative

America has no choice if it is to avoid total disaster. China and Russia are open for business and working at close to capacity, as America shutters most all business and industry in states such as Pennsylvania, New York, California, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In many cases only select manufacturing companies are allowed to operate,…


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Government Is No Match for the Coronavirus

The coronavirus is reminding everyone that you cannot rely on government and that ultimately it is the private sector that will provide the solutions. Many nonmedical government officials and members of the media are predicting massive cases of COVID-19 and death, when in fact no one can predict the outcome. What we do know is…


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