On the first day of my economics classes, I tell my students that if they saw my paychecks that they would realize the school is exploiting me.
The most far-fetched myth that I’ve encountered recently is that the wealth of the modern Western world, especially that of the United States, is the product of slavery.
This thought experiment will help you wrap your head around the inanity of Trump’s trade policies.
Keynesian prognostication aside, natural disasters are always bad for economic growth.
Abby Hobbs [name changed for privacy] is not the type of person you’d classify as lazy or naïve. As a digital strategist at a small marketing firm, her enthusiasm for and knowledge of her industry are obvious whenever she talks about her job. But, as she told Learn Liberty, getting there wasn’t easy. As a […]
In this previous post I wrote that “[t]here is yet a deeper economic fallacy that infects Mr. Krugman’s recent defense of mercantilism – a problem that I hope to blog on soon.” What follows is that promised blog post. Mr. Krugman’s most-recent defense of mercantilism boils down to the assertion that the case for free trade […]
Among my favorite observations made by Thomas Sowell is his insistence that in economic reality human beings confront, not the possibility of solutions to problems but, instead, only trade-offs. We can have more of this good, but only at the cost of having less of that good. T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L. Such is economic reality. A frustration suffered […]
Is a $15 minimum wage a free lunch? George Mason University Professor Don Boudreaux says no. In the brand new video below, he points out that minimum wage hikes may sound good in on their face, but in reality they result in job loss because they increase the cost of labor, making low-skilled employees more […]
Over at Cafe Hayek, Professor Don Boudreaux has outlined an objection (or addition, really) to our recent Learn Liberty video with Peter Jaworski: War Sucks, What Is It Good For? He writes: “Countries whose peoples trade extensively with each other are less likely to go to war with each other not only because people in […]
In this video professor Don Boudreaux responds directly to commentator Robert Reich on the topic of wages, particularly the claim that middle class wages have stagnated in recent decades.
The following post appeared on Don Boudreaux’s blog, Cafe Hayek, on December 20th, 2015. There’s been a lot of reporting recently about a new Pew Research Center report misleadingly titled “The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground” and even more misleadingly subtitled “No longer the majority and falling behind financially.” But here’s a picture of Pew’s […]
The following is an excerpt from Don Boudreaux on his blog, Cafe Hayek. Be sure to click through and read the whole post. Deirdre [McCloskey] acknowledges that a great deal of exploitation has occurred throughout history – exploitation that enriched some people and impoverished others. (Indeed, such exploitation continues to occur in various forms and degrees.) […]
Did you know that selling milk for less than the government’s imposed price floor could land you in jail? Prison time isn’t the only drawback of minimum prices for milk. Prices are the miraculous mechanism by which complex market information about supply and demand are communicated throughout the economy. When government policies artificially raise or […]