Category Archives: Economics

Failure of “Liberalism” in Texarkana?

I see our town has made the OPED page of the NY Times. I see many scholars quoted (& I’ve read many of their books and value their perspectives), but I don’t see that they talked to anyone in Texarkana, … Continue reading

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Thinking about BLS Statistical Reports

BLS reporting has been in the news lately. I only took one statistics class in college, so I recognize my limitations. Nonetheless, I have some “meta” questions: Are “good” statistical reports ones that clearly “show my team’s policy to be … Continue reading

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Should Christians Be Leftists?

I’m sucker for free books. In this case Eerdmans, the publisher, offered me a free copy of Phil Christman’s Why Christians Should Be Leftists to read on condition that I’d share my opinions. My initial thoughts were that this book … Continue reading

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Love of Domination

Do you want to live in a society ruled by those who love to dominate others? In this post economist Timothy Taylor discusses Adam Smith’s analysis that those who pursue domination are not working in their own best interests (let … Continue reading

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A Less Bad Culture War?

If we have to have a culture war, I wish we could conceptualize it in ways that were better for the country. Looking at Kyle Chan’s analysis of Chinese economic progress & challenges, Noah Smith claims that we’re getting ourselves … Continue reading

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Thinking about a “Normal” World

When we consider any population, characteristics are not equally distributed to ever member of the population. This is visibly obvious when it comes to height. Every person has some height – they can be measured. Perhaps its also obvious – … Continue reading

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The Possibility of Market Morality

Major Nathaniel B. Davis of West Point writes recently of the need for a morality of the market similar to the way just war theory provides a morality for war. As one who believes all areas of human action benefit from … Continue reading

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The American Dream?

 What has America come to that we are dreaming about counter tops? If we had an epidemic of defective counter tops, I might understand this phenomenon. Say, for example, that faulty or sub-standard counter tops were causing 3.4 deaths per … Continue reading

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What’s the Price?

Theologian Roger Olson turns to a non-theological subject, the way prices are computed in contemporary markets. He observes, For example, many city newspapers are basing subscription rates on: length of time a subscription has been steady, zip code and income … Continue reading

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Free Community College!

Why is there such a thing as COST? Why isn’t everything just free? Cost is a way of showing the relative value of things. When we see that one thing costs more than another, we can take it as an … Continue reading

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