Austrian Addiction

Dan D'Amico on proportionate punishment, free market prisons, criminal justice, Austrian economics and much more.

February 2008 - Posts

Prison stats make another new record
I saw this from the New York Times yesterday. Originally I wanted to put up a post that asked the following question: For how long will America continue to set new records in the realm of incarceration and punishment trends without a serious call for...
Open Access Harvard
This could be huge! Read More...
Smoking bans lead to drunk driving.
Productivity Shock posted a great abstract on this topic. I would guess that any number of the following might be true and also contribute to the phenomenon in question, but might not be detectable by the existing data. 1. Bumming out cigarettes is more...
A tragicomic explanation of the tragedy of the commons
Are Smurfs a public good? Ryan Somma seems to think so. Apparently if no one owns something everyone must own and have a right to it. This article gets an A for effort but could use a dose of Coase. La la la la la la la... Read More...
Open Source Academics
This interesting protest of "locked down" academic journals made it to Digg's frontpage today. Read More...
Why aren't there any folk songs for Capitalism?
Pete Boettke recently asked this puzzling question along with another tough one: "why does capitalism produce yet fail to inspire, while socialism inspires, yet fails to produce?" in class and blog. I'm in the midst of reading Property and...
Drew Carey on the Agitator
The Agitator linked to this Drew Carey video about the conditions of America's middle class. I was unsatisfied with how the video explained the decline in morale among the economically thriving middle class. It seems to blame the media - misery sells...
Life for Donuts!
How's this for proportionality? Read More...