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Friday, September 4, 2020

"The Best Thing for Being Sad is To Learn Something"

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As another school year gets underway, I feel moved to speak for the pleasure of learning something, and how learning can banish sadness. The...
Thursday, September 3, 2020

When Government Debt Explodes in Size, What Options Do Countries Have?

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US government debt is exploding in size. The Congressional Budget Office lays out the patterns in "An Update to the Budget Outlook: 202...
Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Have Americans Been Overworking?

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There was a time, about 60-70 years ago, when the typical American worker spent several hundred fewer hours on the job each year compared wi...
Tuesday, September 1, 2020

George Orwell: "Vagueness and Sheer Incompetence is the Most Marked Characteristic of Modern English Prose"

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Many readers of this blog are surely already familiar with George Orwell's famous 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language,...
Monday, August 31, 2020

The Wellspring of Economics: "The Social Enthusiasm which Revolts from the Sordidness of Mean Streets and the Joylessness of Withered Lives "

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A.C. Pigou offers not a definition of economics, but rather an account of the source of economics as a field of interest,  near the start of...
Saturday, August 29, 2020

Wearing Face-masks: The Mixed Evidence

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What does the actual scientific literature say about wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19? It's less clear than a non-s...
Friday, August 28, 2020

Jacob Viner: A Modest Proposal for Some Scholarship in Graduate Training

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Academic specialization has its tradeoffs. On one side, extreme specialization and focus helps to develop insights and discoveries that woul...