I really enjoyed my Tuesday debate on “The Philosophy of Poverty?” with my friend David Balan. Many thanks to GMU’s Economics Society for setting it up. While we had a great discussion, here are a few thoughts I’d like to add.
Tag: economics
Economics 101: Relative Prices & Wizard’s Sixth Rule: Ruled by Reason (16m) – Episode 289
Episode 289 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: continuation of the Economics 101 mini-series on relative versus absolute prices; continuation of the Wizard’s Rules mini-series, Wizard’s Sixth Rule: “The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason”; and more.
Career Leverage and the Structure of Production
I’m a big fan of the Austrian School of Economics, which focuses a lot on the structure of production, which is a fancy way of saying the long process of how stuff gets made. It’s the process of going from products (Here’s an apple), to tools (Here’s a ladder to reach more apples), to tools for making tools (Here’s a saw to cut wood for ladders), and on and on. The deepening of the structure of production requires insight and foresight, since it adds ’roundaboutness’ to a straightforward task like apple picking. But it also adds massive leverage.
Patrick Newman: The Progressive Era and the Rise of Crony Capitalism (45m)
This episode features a lecture by economics professor Patrick Newman from 2018 on the United States’ Progressive Era and the rise of political entrepreneurship, or crony capitalism.
Tariffs Cause Americans to Accept Inferior Deals
This is how tariffs work. They make superior offers less desirable for buyers by making them more costly. The result is that buyers end up with goods and services that, absent the tariff, they would not want to buy.
Walter Block: Defending the Undefendable (52m)
This episode features a lecture by economics professor and Austro-libertarian Walter Block from 2016 about his two books which present defenses of some of society’s seemingly worst actors.
Economics 101: Opportunity Cost & Wizard’s Fifth Rule: Deeds Will Betray a Lie (22m) – Episode 285
Episode 285 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: a list of things teachers say to manipulate and control children in the classroom; he continues the Economics 101 mini-series with “opportunity cost”; he also continues the Wizard’s Rules mini-series with the fifth rule, “Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie”; and more.
Tariffs Remove Options and Necessarily Reduce Economic Well-Being
There is a principle in economics that says, other things being equal, one cannot improve people’s economic well-being by adding constraints to their choices. For example, tariffs add constraints by directly or indirectly increasing the prices that buyers must pay to acquire the goods that, absent the tariffs, they prefer to buy from foreign suppliers.
Jared Interviewed on the Everything Voluntary Podcast (34m) – Episode 005
Episode 005: Jared was a guest on the Everything Voluntary podcast in May 2018. With host Skyler Collins, they discussed the following topics: the Pacific northwest, career electrician, second marriage and dating, his political journey, Jack Spirko, Stefan Molyneux, Austrian economics, Lysander Spooner, challenging jurisdiction, Larken Rose, cognitive dissonance, outgroup bigotry, and more.
The Mighty Difference Between Immigration and Trade
International trade is a wonderful thing, but merely trading goods across borders has no blatant effect on the productivity of the workers who produced the goods. When a worker migrates from a low-productivity country to a high-productivity country, however, he becomes vastly more productive almost overnight.