Lynne Kiesling …this time from Ron Bailey at Reason. He’s discussing a Friends of the Earth report arguing that natural resources are an important part of the story in eradicating poverty in developing countries. All too predictably, a good bit of the report consists of a tiresome standard-issue anti-globalization screed against “neoliberal” economic policies and …
Lynne Kiesling More IHS seminar blogging: Steve Horwitz on James Taylor’s discussion of Mill’s stand on free speech as a discovery process. Free speech is essential to liberty and to the good life because no one has a monopoly on the truth. Nor, would I add, can anyone claim to know the truth in a …
Lynne Kiesling Yesterday Russ Roberts caught himself in a mechanistic metaphor for economic activity, talking about how the economy creates jobs as if the economy is a big machine. Yet we know, and Russ explicitly corrects himself to say, that it’s individuals and the combinations of their interactions that leads to job growth: It’s a …
Lynne Kiesling One of the standard topics I discuss in summer workshops and in my environmental economics course is the benefits of tradable emission permits, including cap-and-trade programs such as the EPA’s Acid Rain program (yes, I know it’s not ideal because the cap is bureaucratically determined, but it’s better than the practical alternative, isn’t …
Lynne Kiesling This is one of the things I love the most about being an economist: from Steve Levitt’s Saturday post on car seats vs. seat belts, in which he posts a link to his new working paper on the question: Things move quickly in the modern world. Within two hours of posting my academic …
Lynne Kiesling John Fund’s Monday column reinforces the point with respect to Kelo that not only are property rights human rights, they are also civil rights. Martin Luther King III, a former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, says that “eminent domain should only be used for true public projects, not to take from …
Lynne Kiesling Last week while I was off philosophizing, the Federal Trade Commission released a new report on the factors that influence retail gasoline prices (hat tip to Todd Zywicki). The FTC watches retail gasoline prices carefully, and every spring like clockwork when prices go up and my Senator (that would be Dick Durbin) rails …
Lynne Kiesling Apparently last week when I blogged Aeon’s philosophy lecture from IHS, I started something! This week at the Liberty & Society seminar in California, the faculty will be live-blogging the lectures at Agoraphilia. Of particular note this morning is Steve Davies discussing Steve Horwitz’s lecture on the Great Depression. Steve D. is an …
Lynne Kiesling Google and Goldman Sachs have invested in Current Communications, a broadband over power line technology firm. Current’s press release on the news states that “These investments provide us with both capital and operating assistance as we continue to roll out Broadband-over-Power Line services to provide voice, video and data services,” said William Berkman, …
Google And Goldman Invest In Bpl Technology Firm Read More »
Lynne Kiesling The European Parliament has rejected the software patent directive that would have instituted US-style patents on software. See, for example, this UK Register article and this MSN Money article. Hat tip: SlashDot. From the MSN article: The so-called software patent directive, rejected by a 648-14 vote with 18 abstentions, would have given companies …
Copyright © 2022 Knowledge Problem Archive