Posts in Economics
A cheery message from the Department of Obtuse Hypocrisy - filed before Ukraine invasion

In my latest National Post column (filed before the invasion of Ukraine) I mock the government for encouraging us to switch providers to get lower prices and better service through the magic of competition, while subjecting vast swaths of the economy and our lives to its monopoly control

What if the "deep state" is really the "deep sleep" state?

In my latest National Post column, while acknowledging the world-historic greatness of Justin Trudeau now that he has emergency powers, I ask whether our governments’ manifest incapacity to do even simple things including fixing health care derives from having long ago substituted make-believe for serious thought.

Words Worth Noting - February 16, 2022

“Certainly the point that liberty is only one argument in the utility function, and you can put liberty on an indifference curve against bananas and have an isoproduct curve and indifference curves and this and that, is part of this moral colour-blindness.”

Walter Block in Michael A. Walker, ed., Freedom Democracy and Economic Welfare: Proceedings of an International Symposium

Pitiful, helpless giants

In my latest Epoch Times column I say the real danger facing Canada isn’t tyranny but anarchy, with governments full of meddlesome ambition so lost in make-believe they freeze facing real-world problems.

Words Worth Noting - February 2, 2022

“I am constantly asked what we are going to do with the [Nobel economics] prize money – $1.2 million before Uncle Sam takes his very large bite. The answer to that is a simple lesson in economics. Wants always expand to take advantage of new opportunities, which explains why consumers in rich countries feel no more satiated than do those in poor countries. My wife and I won’t have the slightest difficulty spending the prize money.”

Gary Becker in Business Week November 2 1992 [but if so then the marginal utility of new income is zero which surely is not true]