"Why worry about Ukraine? To many, it seems far away and a country about which they know little. News clips of the recent violent demonstrations in Kiev have occasionally appeared on the news shows, but most Americans have shown little interest. Yet Ukraine has the very real possibility of setting off the next financial crisis." (02/11/14)

"Bryan has discussed the puzzling lack of social conservatives in economics. Economists use an agreed-upon framework that would seem to offer social conservatives a 'safe harbor' to express their ideas, as long as they express them within the accepted framework. A related issue is whether or not economics is in some sense poorer for its lack of social conservatives. Are there important ideas that are not being discovered because they are appealing only to social conservatives? My favorite case study on this issue involves something that Janet Yellen and Rick Santorum have in common: they both think that contraception led to more out-of-wedlock births." (02/11/14)

"If all the world lived like these people, we’d be halfway to a paradise by now. And that was a thought that made me sad. Why? Because these people -- by any standard of decency -- should be left alone to create their better world. But instead, they are forcibly tied to wasteful, parasitic, and destructive systems. Half or more of their earnings are taken from them every year. Their actions are restricted by their moral inferiors. They live less than half the rewarding lives they should be enjoying, and for no defensible reason." (02/11/14)

"It has been 50 years since the Beatles arrived in the United States, forever altering the landscape of popular music. But contrary to the general notion that the mop-tops hopped off a plane in 1964 and were just so talented and lovable that they took the states by storm, the Beatles’ conquering of America was actually the result of a long and complex struggle. It was the end result of the actions of numerous people acting in their own interests, with little knowledge of or concern about what the other was up to." (02/11/14)

Cartoon. (02/11/14)

"Forget here about the impossibility of designing a voting system that processes and aggregates individual-voters’ preferences to generate outcomes that are 'the People’s will' in the same way that choices and actions of a flesh-and-blood individual generate outcomes that are that individual’s will. (Anthropomorphizing the collective is a grievous intellectual error that, innocent as it might appear, invites ethical atrocities.) Instead, recognize only the straightforward fact that in the vast majority of cases, market decisions satisfy the preferences of a much larger number, and proportion, of people than does even the best designed, corruption-free, and most inclusive system of collective voting." (02/11/14)

"It's hardly a flattering portrait of the political animal -- so why are D.C.'s political animals so crazy about the show? It can't be HoC's devotion to cinematic realism. The show gets so many things wrong about politics that at times it's like watching a police procedural written by somebody who didn't bother talking to any cops. At the start of Season One, Frank Underwood is a contender for secretary of state; by Season Two, he's maneuvered himself 'a heartbeat away' from the presidency." (02/11/14)

"President George W. Bush averaged 63 major rules per year during his eight years in office; Obama’s five years so far have averaged 81. President Obama has talked about regulatory lookbacks and reducing regulation in his executive orders on the topic, but his major rulemakings average 29 percent higher than Bush. The rise isn’t much of a surprise in the wake of the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. The Department of Health and Human Services, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are becoming increasingly active in terms of major rules." (02/11/14)

"How does one begin to make sense out of the gooey, smelly mess that is today’s Republican Party? My question must be accompanied by a confession. I recently joined the GOP for the very purpose of screwing it up. I wanted to cause even more chaos within it, or at least my own local corner of it. But my purpose was not to do it harm, but to do it good. I hoped that the chaos to which I contributed would be creative, not destructive." (02/11/14)

"The lunar soil may indeed be rich in rare earths: I have no idea myself but it could be. However, absolutely no one, ever, is going to try and mine rare earths on hte Moon and then return them to Earth. It simply isn't going to happen. What I think has happened here is that people have absorbed the stories of the past few years about impending shortages of the rare earths. All that stuff about China reducing exports of these metals so vital to modern electronics. And thus there's a feeling that any deposit of them, even somewhere as inaccessible as the surface of the Moon, must be something that people would want to exploit." [editor's note: "Ever" is a long, long time. I expect that rare earths will be a reasonably important lunar export within 100 years, possibly within 50 - TLK] (02/11/14)

"Krugman’s elementary error is that he fails to realize that market wages result from the interaction of both supply and demand for labor: If supply falls while demand remains constant (that is, if the supply schedule shifts to the left while the demand schedule remains unmoved), equilibrium wages will rise. However, if both schedules shift an equal distance to the left, the equilibrium wage will be unchanged, and if demand shifts by more than supply, equilibrium wages will actually fall." (02/11/14)

"It would, of course, be an exaggeration to claim that without Keynes and the Keynesian revolution inflation, deficit spending, and interventionism would not have occurred. For decades before the appearance of Keynes’s book, the political and ideological climate had been shifting toward ever-greater government involvement in social and economic affairs, due to the growing influence of collectivist ideas among intellectuals and policy-makers in Europe and America. But before the appearance of 'The General Theory,' many of the advocates of such collectivist policies had to get around the main body of economic thinking which still argued that in general the best course was for government to keep its hands off the market, maintain a stable currency backed by gold, and restrain its own taxing and spending policies." (02/11/14)

"President Obama’s state of the union pledge to 'act with or without Congress' marks a milestone in presidential usurpation of Congressional authority. Most modern presidents have used executive orders to change and even create laws without Congressional approval. However President Obama is unusually brazen, in that most Presidents do not brag about their plans to rule by executive order in state of the union speeches. Sadly, his pledge to use his pen to implement laws and polices without the consent of Congress not only received thunderous applause from representatives of the president’s party, some representatives have even pledged to help Obama get around Congress by providing him with ideas for executive orders." (02/10/14)

"All the high-level 'counter-terrorism' legislation passed after 9/11 was justified at the time by the urgent need to stop anyone from ever again crashing a jet plane into a skyscraper, spreading anthrax or setting off a 'dirty bomb' in a major city. These were supposedly extraordinary powers granted only to counter extraordinary dangers, never to be used by law enforcement against ordinary crimes. But when has the state ever promised that and kept its word? The Espionage and Sedition Acts passed during World War I were accompanied by similar assurances that they wouldn’t be used to suppress ordinary dissent and political debate -- and wound up being used as grounds for mass arrests of I.W.W. and Socialist Party members and public critics of the war. So here we are." (02/10/14)

"President Barack Obama recently unveiled MyRA, a savings plan to allow Americans without employer-provided retirement accounts to invest in U.S. government bonds. His desire to improve the public’s meager personal savings rate of around 4 percent is laudable, but MyRA misses the mark. In fact, it pushes investors toward what is basically a government-run Ponzi scheme." (02/10/14)

"When choosing among institutions or policies in the real world, we of course have to take into account compliance issues. Will people go along with the rules? Will they try to take advantage of them, or use the institutions to harm others, or rebel against the rules? But there’s a difference between A) people are rebelling against the rules because the rules are unjust vs. B) people are rebelling against the rules because they, the people, are unjust." (02/10/14)

"My old friend Ambrose has died. I don't suppose this really concerns anybody but me, but it's my way of dealing with a surprisingly painful event, so please bear with me." (02/10/14)

"I have written twice about the 'risk corridors' in Obamacare’s health-insurance exchanges. The first post described how risk corridors will work in the exchanges. Risk corridors exist for three years and are designed to partially immunize insurers from losing money in the exchanges. Recently, the risk corridors have been described as a 'bailout,' especially by Republicans who seek to have them repealed. The political goal is to discourage insurers from continuing to participate in exchanges in 2015, thereby further weakening and crippling Obamacare." (02/10/14)

"I’m not going to list the litany of problems with GMO. Since you are here, I’ll figure you have a pretty good idea of the depth and breadth of their toxicity to the people and planet. The point I’m struck with, sticking with, is the revolving door connecting the ruling elite with the corporations poisoning our environment." (02/09/14)

"Whenever one needs a good laugh there is almost always an obliging politician who can come up with something that makes the rest of us smile. Michigan Republican Mike Rogers, frequently noted scowling with a face radiating hostility that could curdle milk, chairs the House Intelligence Committee. He is much given to finding enemies under every rock and is not normally a laugh-a-minute type of guy, but he does have his moments." (02/11/14)

"Solar and wind energy system owners, movie and TV producers, the impoverished, those who hire workers in certain zones, those who buy durable goods to use in a business. These seemingly disparate groups have something in common, though: they are all beneficiaries of tax credits. Those who seek to enlarge or expand those credits at the legislature frequently find the Tax Foundation opposed. Why is that?" (02/10/14)

"Today marks the first day the red light piracy goes live in Sierra Vista, Arizona. The Redflex pirates have invaded the little burg of Sierra Vista, Arizona and red light cameras are springing up in a little town in the same state that kicked them off the state payroll after allegations of bribery, fixing and corruption by the Governor." (02/10/14)

"Tom Palmer joins Aaron and Trevor for a discussion on the two most common philosophical justifications for libertarianism." [Flash audio or MP3] (02/10/14)

"Hayek and Mises were certainly not New Dealers. But for Mr. Dionne to caricature their warning that freedom cannot survive if the economy becomes overwhelmingly politicized as a claim that the slightest bit of politicization is 'objectively comparable' to Nazism and Soviet communism is absurd." (02/10/14)

"The Congressional Budget Office did not exactly say Obamacare would cost the nation 2.5 million jobs. But what it did say is vindication of what conservatives have preached since Barry Goldwater stood in the pulpit 50 years ago: The more liberal the welfare state, the greater the disincentive to work and the more ruinous the impact upon a nation’s work ethic. The CBO has just given us a statistical measure of that truth." (02/11/14)

"In a recent move that is likely to come as a surprise to many animal lovers around the world, the South African government is asking the international community to legalize the rhino horn trade as a means to save the animal and to fight poaching. The justification for this is clear: by banning the sale of the horns and thus making them less available, the price for them has gone through the roof, creating incredible monetary incentives for poachers. Meanwhile, the rhino has been stripped of a major source of its value in legal markets, which has caused private owners of rhinos to question the profitability of providing heavily for the animal’s security." (02/10/14)

"The OffNow coalition has now marched state and local efforts to stop unconstitutional NSA spying right onto the agency’s front porch. Late last week, Maryland State Delegate Michael Smigiel introduced the Fourth Amendment Protection Act to end all state cooperation with the National Security Agency (NSA). Based on model legislation drafted by a transpartisan coalition organized by the Tenth Amendment Center (TAC) and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), HB1074 would ban Maryland state or local government from providing water, electricity or other resources to the NSA while it engages in warrantless mass-surveillance, and would make shared collected data inadmissible in state courts." (02/10/14)

"The supposed prime objective of banking rules and regulation is to protect and reduce risk. As the credit crisis has clearly demonstrated regulation has failed to do so. Despite this the proposed solution is more regulation." (02/10/14)

"Michael and Dale ask why Progressive politics are so attractive." [various formats] (02/09/14)

"Recent difficulties with implementing the Affordable Care Act have increased opposition to the program. A majority of Americans now oppose it. Problems with the healthcare.gov website are in all likelihood temporary. However, there are serious long-term problems, particularly considering long-term finance and labor supply issues. Give the mounting difficulties with and growing concerns about the ACA, it is worthwhile to reconsider the main issues regarding this program." (02/10/14)

"[A]ny town where you can sit for a few minutes and see multiple cop cars driving past is infested with them. It's the opposite of a 'civilized' place." (02/10/14)