- From the Wall Street Journal: Bring Back the Robber Barons . I think I’ll pass. I mean why stop with the robber barons? Why not go all the way back to feudalism where most workers are the personal property of some monied rich baron who’s buddy-buddy with the king?
- From Maxine Udall (girl Economist): Bring Back the Robber Barons? I don’t Think So. You go girl.
- “The $800 billion federal stimulus bill has boosted employment by 1 million to 2.1 million and helped the economy grow about 1.5% to 3.5% larger than it would have without the stimulus, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.” Read more as the CBO smacks down the arguments of critics of the stimulus.
- Rajiv Sethi on Intellectual Property and Guard Labor. Great article including good further links about how wasteful and unproductive copyrights, patents, and other forms of government-granted private monopolies on ideas. Really such efforts as copyright and patent schemes are really another form of attempted thought-control by a minority at great expense to the rest of us. [disclaimer: I own a patent myself, but have never attempted to restrict it’s use]
- Gavin Kennedy at Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy with What Adam Smith Actually Identified as the Appropriate Roles for 18-century Governments responds to one of the latest attempts to claim Adam Smith was an advocate of tiny-government, libertarian policies. Gavin has a very detailed list of the many functions that Smith specifically said governments should provide (and not outsource to a private profit-making firm). It’s not at all what the Republicans, Libertarians, or Chicago Boys claim. I really wish people would read the books before they claim some dead author supports them.
- For the student interested in economic history, particularly macro, the history of Say’s Law is essential. It defines the difference between Classical theory vs. Keynesianism/Progressive. Brad Delong has an excellent post on this.
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EconProph 