“ [A]s common sense tells us, anecdotes about edge cases and outliers are proof that they represent all cases.
April 6, 2010
May 22, 2009
“ Now what exactly is the HDI? The one-line explanation is that it gives “equal weights” to GDP per capita, life expectancy, and education. But it’s more complicated than that, because scores on each of the three measures are bounded between 0 and 1. This effectively means that a country of immortals with infinite per-capita GDP would get a score of .666 (lower than South Africa and Tajikistan) if its population were illiterate and never went to school.
Against the Human Development Index, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
2 years ago • 0 notes
May 18, 2009
“ Even if Steve Sailer were completely correct about the political consequences of Hispanic immigration, they’re a small evil compared to the massive injustice of immigration restrictions.
The Case Against Libertarian Hispanophobia, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
3 years ago • 0 notes
May 5, 2009
“ Libertarianism does have public relations problems, and it’s not because most people are stupid or immoral. It’s because libertarians have done a terrible job countering the widespread suspicion that it’s a uselessly abstract ahistorical ideology for socially retarded adolescent white guys. The sadly common libertarian-conservative penchant for “brave” counter-PC truthiness (e.g., “Women do love the welfare state!” “Blacks really do have lower IQs!”) certainly doesn’t help.
April 4, 2009
“ And, if we count people working full time who’d rather get paid a lot more money, put in fewer hours, and do things that are more fun, it’s now up to 99.9 percent. Virtually one in every one workers in America is now either unemployed or underemployed! QED
April 3, 2009
“ It’s perfectly doable, but you’ve got to really want to do it.
March 18, 2009
“ If suicide were a proper penalty for piddling away taxpayer dollars, the National Mall would look just like Jonestown after refreshments.
March 17, 2009
“ And that’s really what it comes down to: more information and more points of view equals lower trust. In the past, trust for government/medicine/science/religion was high because there were no opposing points of view for them. In fact, though, people probably would have been better off not trusting them — since they were even less reliable than they are today.
February 5, 2009
“ [Paul Krugman] said elsewhere that it was good and that it was what got us out of the depression. He just says whatever is convenient for his political argument. He doesn’t behave like an economist. And the guy has never done any work in Keynesian macroeconomics, which I actually did. He has never even done any work on that. His work is in trade stuff. He did excellent work, but it has nothing to do with what he’s writing about.
February 1, 2009
“ 17. In general, with a heterogeneous work force, re-employment is going to require subtle, local adjustments. As I see it, the market mechanism is better suited than Washington to making those types of adjustments.
