Latest Posts

August 29, 2017

The balance of industries and creative destruction

Note: This is post #46 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Why are price signals and market competition so important to a market economy? When prices accurately signal costs and benefits and markets are competitive, the Invisible Hand ensures that costs are minimized and production is maximized, explains Alex Tabarrok. Continue Reading...
August 24, 2017

A British perspective on the Alt-Right and antifa Left

The violent reaction to President Trump’s Phoenix rally and the ongoing fallout over Charlottesville show the issue of the Alt-Right, and its Antifa antagonists, is going nowhere. Americans struggle to understand what kind of “conservatism” the Alt-Right represents, as well as the nature of the protesters. Continue Reading...
August 24, 2017

Explainer: What you should know about the debt ceiling

What just happened? In two tweets posted earlier today, President Trump attacked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan for not tying an increase in the debt limit to a recent Veterans Affairs bill that passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support. Continue Reading...
August 24, 2017

When online conformity mobs imitate government coercion

The social-media outrage machine is rather predictable these days. It doesn’t take much for companies and celebrities to offend the cultural consensus, spurring online mobs to respond, in turn: not through peaceful discourse or by turning their attention elsewhere, but by fomenting rage, abuse, and assault on the subject(s) in question. Continue Reading...