Economics

One of the most common arguments for allowing more immigration is that there is a “need” for foreign workers to do “jobs that Americans won’t do,” especially in agriculture. One of my most vivid memories of the late Armen Alchian, an...

Advocates of a number of government interventions often argue that such measures are required to deal with the “free rider problem.” Indeed, Mitt Romney has called his insurance mandate in Massachusetts a “free rider surcharge.” Wikipedia describes the “free rider...

First published in 1946, Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt remains one of best books on economics ever published. The lesson, to paraphrase Hazlitt, is that economists must look beyond the immediate and visible consequences of economic policies; they must look...

The savings of the wealthy and the innovation of entrepreneurs combined to create a huge benefit for society. Call it trickle down if you want, but it would be more honest to simply call it effective. This is the system that built this country. Relying on trickle up wil…

The fundamental issue is not wage rates, but productivity.

For decades, it has been argued that certain goods are “natural monopolies,” which Investopedia describes as: A type of monopoly that exists as a result of the high fixed or start-up costs of operating a business in a particular industry. … The utilities industry is a...

President Obama has long told us that “green” energy would create thousands of jobs. His administration has “invested” billions of tax dollars in a myriad of “green” industries. Predictably, the results have been the opposite of what we were promised. As one example,...

Imagine that you start a business, and after years of hard work, you achieve the success that you had long thought possible. How would you react if, after achieving success, the government told you that you must pay a portion of your revenues to your competitors? The...

A series of essays based on portions of Objective Economics: How Ayn Rand’s Philosophy Changes Everything About Economics by Northrup Buechner. In my previous posting on this subject, I noted that both the proponents and opponents of the law of supply and demand...

An excerpt from Objective Economics: How Ayn Rand’s Philosophy Changes Everything About Economics by Northrup Buechner.   Here is the fundamental problem of economics: Every consumer good that you buy reaches you through the cooperation of literally...

The public standing of economics and economists has been declining for some time. In the 1960s and 1970s, economists were seen, and they saw themselves, as the saviors of the economy. They talked of “fine-tuning” the economy, of changing government...

What we are seeing in Europe is that that model is inherently unsustainable. The concept of individual rights is the only standard for government action that puts an objective limit on what the government can do. The post-war leaders of Europe were completely ignorant...

Objective Economics: How Ayn Rand’s Philosophy Changes Everything About Economics  is the product of forty-eight years spent studying Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism and the science of economics. When I read Atlas Shrugged in 1962, I was stunned...

In the conditions of a labor shortage, which necessarily materializes if wage rates go below the point corresponding to full employment, the payment of higher wages provides exactly the same benefit to employers.

This theory of profit/interest has major implications for the understanding of capital accumulation, the determination of real wages and the general standard of living, taxation, inflation/deflation, and the business cycle. It also provides the basis for the overthrow o…

The key to avoiding “busts” is to avoid the credit expansion and “booms” that cause them.