October 2008 - Posts
Human civilization, coordination and cooperation that is. Check out these new findings : To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled...
At a very rudimentary level I think that efforts like this to make a more productive use out of the energy already being used and released through ordinary foot travel is in one sense brilliant yet in another sense obvious. I think about this whenever...
Three cheers to Adam Martin and Emily Schaeffer for winning this year's Lavoie prize. Read More...
I was just interviewed for local news Fox8 about the economic recession and its effect on current effects with the local retail market. It's supposed to air after major league baseball tonight around 10pm in the New Orleans area. Video cameras are...
How difficult it is for state planners to fully recognize the scope of costs and unintended consequences behind criminal justice policies. I'd bet dollars to donuts increases in the parole system were at one time sited as a release valve for prison...
My department website is finally up and running. All I need now is to update my personal homepage. It's getting a bit rusty as one Emily Schaeffe r can attest. Read More...
Any one reading this post, family, friend, acquaintance or stranger, if you put any credit in the contents of this blog or the comments and opinions of its author, if you know or trust in anything I say, then hear me now: BUY PETE LEESON'S FORTHCOMING...
Unfortunately there is an inevitable bias against many of the insights that sound political economy has to offer. For example, when working on the Katrina project with The Mercatus Center I was often frustrated with how dissatisfied many policy workers...
Alex Tabarrok has said that increased police on the streets serve as a good solution for temporary crime spikes. Here's Montesque's concern on the matter: 12. Of the Power of Punishments. Experience shows that in countries remarkable for the lenity...
Doubt many people caught it but I was interviewed on talk radio this morning. Robinette's "Think Tank," gave me a call to discuss the economic platforms of McCain and Obama. To sum up my points were: 1) There is little to no differences...
Back in September Phillip Johnson commented on the UK's economic position and the likely criminal trends in the near future: Most violence is caused by young men against young men, usually at night, when they are drunk. At a time of economic slowdown...
Before the bailout I was skeptical that the bailout would 1) work as it said it would and 2) that it would carry its own unintended consequences. Looks like we're coming to those hard truths day by day as markets continue to resist being "stabilized...
Hat tip to Pete at Austrian Economists. Here's Chris at Notablog on A Crisis of Political Economy. Read More...