Imagine painting yourself into a corner. You give up a regular income and make a career choice that leads to wacky increases in the cost of living. That’s what I did 1975. My story is something to consider in pondering…
Has the age-old conflict between liberals and conservatives ceased to matter? To put it another way, has the philosophical debate between left and right devolved into the semi-comic spectacle of “two bald men fighting over a comb”? That is how…
What was the greatest Super Bowl commercial of all time? With Super Sunday just around the corner, we will cite the Apple commercial that introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer in January 1984. It had as its punch line, “You’ll…
Imagine you are in a car accident on New Year’s Eve. Like Jason Bourne as the CIA agent in The Bourne Identity, you wake up to a strange new reality: You don’t know who you are, where you are, or…
Free enterprise uses a simple conjuring trick to great effect: It gives people what they want. Still more, it is constantly coming up with new things they like even better. Think of the development of smart phones, online commerce, Google,…
St. Louis, Missouri Are you a government-failure denier — someone who believes that the government that governs best is one that overflows with good intentions, regardless of the cost or outcome? Are you someone who thinks a lot about “market…
Let’s say employers must pay a substantially higher wage for all unskilled labor. Would this requirement lift many people out of poverty? Still more, would it lead to greater general prosperity? Everything does come up roses — if you ignore costs…
St. Louis Let us consider one of the basic building blocks of economics: the law of unintended consequences. All too often, human actions — especially government actions — backfire and harm the very people they are supposed to benefit. Price…