Saturday, November 05, 2011

Government Organizing Injustice

I'm just now reading Bastiat's "The Law" for the first time. Of course Bastiat puts ideas so well. Just meditate for a while on the following:
Try to imagine a form of labor imposed by force, that is not a violation of liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, that is not a violation of property. If you cannot succeed in reconciling this, you are bound to conclude that the law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Sowell On Greed

Thomas Sowell:
"Among the favorite sloppy words used by the shrill mobs in the streets is "Wall Street greed." But even if you think people in Wall Street, or anywhere else, are making more money than they deserve, "greed" is no explanation whatever.
"Greed" says how much you want. But you can become the greediest person on earth and that will not increase your pay in the slightest. It is what other people pay you that increases your income.
If the government has been sending too much of the taxpayers' money to people in Wall Street — or anywhere else — then the irresponsibility or corruption of politicians is the problem. "Occupy Wall Street" hooligans should be occupying Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington."

Unoccupy Econ

An Open Letter to Greg Mankiw:
"Today, we are walking out of your class, Economics 10, in order to express our discontent with the bias inherent in this introductory economics course. We are deeply concerned about the way that this bias affects students, the University, and our greater society.

As Harvard undergraduates, we enrolled in Economics 10 hoping to gain a broad and introductory foundation of economic theory that would assist us in our various intellectual pursuits and diverse disciplines, which range from Economics, to Government, to Environmental Sciences and Public Policy, and beyond. Instead, we found a course that espouses a specific—and limited—view of economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society today."
If you read the letter you'll see Mankiw is being criticized for not including Keynes in this course. However, this semester of the course is apparently covering microeconomics, and Keynes will be discussed, where he should be, next semester in macroeconomics. Seems sad, don't you think, that these students are several weeks into the semester and they don't yet understand the difference between micro and macro?