Recently in Economics Category

Dear Professor,

I recently had the opportunity of hearing one your commentaries on a local public radio station. I hope that the transcript, podcast, mp3 or whatever is available soon so I can better determine what you actually said as I drove to my next service call.

While I dropped out of formal education sometime after a bachelor's degree, I do pride myself on being somewhat aware of my surroundings and have managed to survive until the ripe age of forty. While that may not qualify me to take umbrage over issues of the world with someone like yourself, I do question your recent commentary about Al Gore's energy call in the next ten to twenty years.

You see, it's not that I don't believe the world is warming based on carbon emissions, it may in fact be doing so. It's the idea that we somehow have to act collectively to solve this problem. I'm somewhat partial to the school of Austrian Economics, the basis of which were many writings by Ludwig Von Mises. The basic idea is that centralized planning doesn't work and never will. They never taught me that back in seminary and I often resent it.

Your candidate sucks. Know this as you prepare your guy for the fight in the fall. He just flipped on FISA & matching funds. Things he pledged not to do. Who hired Samantha Power and James Johnson ? I have have to say as an atheist, it was hard to get worked up about the Reverend Wright. But I do get worked up about ballot access and candidate debates. Both of which your guy fails miserably about. Now I hear he's going to help bail out multi-millionaire Hillary Clinton and her campaign debt, go figure.

I suppose touchy feely crap is the stuff of modern political candidacies, but I'm still waiting for substance. I know the average Ivy League graduate in the MSM thinks those memoirs and books we're the right stuff, but I'm unswayed. But is he the darling that the disgruntled right would have us believe ? As far as I'm concerned the dude can't even bowl, so Harvard degrees in law are meaningless. There simply is no evidence that he understands economics or anything beyond the typical pandering of a main party politician. My vote for President of the United States has always been 'wasted', as a denizen of New York, there's no doubt that my fellow collectivist citizens and their deep desire to hope and have change will carry the day for Obama. This is just a quick protest note to goad your idealism a bit.

Democracy Sucks is hosting the latest edition of the irascible group that touts their radical vision of the world and market. Sense and sensibility some might say.

Looks like I made the cut again after only the second attempt. Of course it was only an off the cuff response to the dreamy Mr. Ludwig's attempt to convince us that oil as a utility is a good idea.

There are good Ludwigs and bad ones.

Ed Ludwig's recent foray into the oil debate is a ludicrous example of the authoritarian mentality and its relation to real economics. When asking the question as to why oil shouldn't be a public utility he states:

A public utility has been defined as a 'business that provides an everyday necessity to the public at large' - such as water, electricity, natural gas, telephone service, transportation, cable TV and other essentials.

While the logical, historical and practical examples and results of such thinking would make any Austrian based economist cringe, apparently editors and publishers suffer nothing of the sort when they decide to publish such tripe.

According to Mr. Ludwig's loose definition, one might consider food, housing and clothing to be functions of a public utility. Indeed, even the local mechanic who provides a service such as fixing your car is vitally involved with 'transportation'. While I don't receive public water, land telephone service or cable TV, apparently these are necessities that I'm forced to pay for so others can enjoy their necessity.