“As Deirdre McCloskey put it: ‘The phrase ‘the dismal science’ was coined by Thomas Carlyle not because economics was gloomy or mathematical — but because economists opposed slavery. That made their science dismal — in Carlyle’s eyes.’ The basic facts of supply and demand weren’t pleasant to extremists then, and still aren’t. Carlyle first used the term in his essay Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question, where he mocked economics for explaining the world with such ‘simplistic’ tools as supply and demand. Did he offer a better alternative? No — but he worried that a world governed by price theory would reduce ‘the duty of human governors’ to ‘letting men alone.’ One may call it simplistic, dismal, or even cold, but the simple idea of price theory — letting people decide for themselves — has been a guardian of liberty from the time of Hume and Smith to today.” (08/27/25)
“President Donald Trump and Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker are undoubtedly enjoying the media spotlight accompanying their feud over possible deployment of federalized National Guard troops to Chicago after the crackdown in Washington, D.C. Neither man has ever shied away from a television camera, and Pritzker has White House ambitions of his own. But while both men savor the attention, the fact is that Pritzker has the better hand to play. Trump doesn’t have the same authority in Chicago that he has in D.C. And the president has more to lose in a showdown over law and order in a city — or any jurisdiction — governed by his political opponents.” (08/27/25)
“I am appalled that some ‘libertarians’ continue to defend Trump and MAGA, as if there is some broader strategy at work here. That somehow the more blatant shift toward state capitalism is going to lead to some kind of ‘free market/free trade’ utopia in the future. Add in Trump’s amping-up of domestic police actions in urban centers and across the United States with the goal of terrorizing and deporting millions of peaceful, productive ‘illegal’ immigrants, as well as his intimidation of educational, cultural, and legal institutions, and his various interventions abroad and what you have is nothing resembling the libertarianism I grew up with.” ()8/27/25)
“Philosophers have, for a very long time, looked down at people who produce physical goods. Few professional philosophers have labored on loading docks, construction sites or similar places. They’ve had little experience with the creativity that keeps a farm, ranch or truck terminal functioning … that against the odds keeps a small business operating. As a rule they haven’t much appreciation for the people who accomplish such crucial things. This situation is deeply problematic, because without physical production we all die. Any philosophy that doesn’t major on it is therefore misguided, and the famous philosophers have in fact ignored production.” (08/27/25)
“David Autor, an MIT economist, argues that AI changes the nature of jobs by automating routine tasks, which ‘allows people with less formal education to perform more complex tasks.’ Instead of hollowing out the labor market, AI could create more opportunity and upward mobility. Expertise has long been equated with diplomas, degrees, and seniority. But what if it meant the ability to receive immediate feedback and learn on the fly? … Is there a remedy to the Catch-22 in which young job seekers need experience to get hired, but need a job to gain it? A promising answer can be found in an approach to workforce preparation with a long and rich history, from ancient times to the modern era: apprenticeships.” (08/27/25)
Source: The Hill
by Christopher Kenny & Tyler Simko
“As academic experts in elections, redistricting and the U.S. Census, we offer three conclusions on this order here. First, President Trump’s demand for a new Census that excludes undocumented immigrants is not just immoral and regressive, but unquestionably unconstitutional in at least two ways. The text of Article One is clear (and echoed by Title 13 of the U.S. Code): the Census is conducted every 10 years, not whenever it is politically convenient. The last decennial Census was conducted in 2020, and preparations are well underway for the 2030 Census. Further, the 14th Amendment plainly states that apportionment in the House of Representatives is based on the ‘whole number of persons in each State.’ … Second, conducting a surprise Census is infeasible and would require compromising data quality.” (08/27/25)
“Conservatives alienated from the Republican Party (as conservatives must be) may make their peace with the Democratic Party, as some have, but many (I suppose most) cannot muster much more than an ‘Ugh!’ for a party whose moderate wing is characterized by Joe Biden and whose radical camp is rallying behind Zohran Mamdani …. But while there probably are not many estranged liberals who feel about the Democratic Party precisely the way conservatives are obliged to feel about the current Republican Party — in part because the Democrats are not at this moment led by a man who attempted a coup d’état the last time he lost an election — they are frustrated and disappointed and, at times, full of very reasonable contempt for their ancestral party.” (08/27/25)
“In 2015, Amy Finkelstein, Nathaniel Hendren, and Erzo Luttmer released an NBER working paper called ‘The Value of Medicaid: Interpreting Results from the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment.’ The paper’s results were a slap in the face of Social Desirability Bias — and the authors boldly advertised them right in the abstract: ‘Our baseline estimates of Medicaid’s welfare benefit to recipients per dollar of government spending range from about $0.2 to $0.4, depending on the framework, with at least two-fifths – and as much as four-fifths – of the value of Medicaid coming from a transfer component, as opposed to its ability to move resources across states of the world. ‘Translation: Medicaid drastically fails a cost-benefit test by giving extremely expensive health care to recipients who barely appreciate it. Using standard economic logic, the poor themselves would be far better-off if the government cut the Medicaid budget in half, then handed current recipients the remaining money.” (08/27/25)
“Just as a bank is a target for robbers, power and money make the government a target for bureaucracies, corporations, and national parties. These interest groups seek politicians who will bend to their will, giving them access to that power and to funds. So politicians willing to give them what they desire are the most secure in their position. … Like giving drug addicts their fix, we hand power over to those who crave it most. Similar to the negative consequences of drug use, both the power user and the taxpayers they abuse, suffer from it.” (08/27/25)
