We can have cheap prices for a scarce commodity and its sudden disappearance as everyone uses it up, or we can have higher prices that make it available to those willing to pay for it. There is nothing in between.
Tag: value
First, Do Not Destroy Scarce Resources
If there is one lesson that everyone should learn from studying even the most elementary economics, and if there is one major intellectual gift that sound economists gave humanity, then it is precisely this vaccine against Orwellian superstition, according to which destruction contains any productive value.
Decide Who You Want to Be, Not What You Want to Do
Some skepticism about “one true callings” is in order, but I do think there’s a reason we have the notion of vocation, and I don’t think it’s all just idle imagination to think that there are better and worse ways to spend your years. However, I do think there’s a better way to find what the right way is. Instead of asking myself what I want to do with my life, I ask myself what kind of person I want to be.
Welfare States Encourage Bad Economic Thinking
In the absence of sound economic thinking, which explains why particular resources end up in the hands of particular members of extended social order, there appears a tendency to invent arbitrary pseudo-reasons as to why one’s position in this order is not as satisfactory as one would like it to be.
Whodunit
I count among my major influences several writers who specialize or specialized in detective fiction, aka pulp fiction. I have come to consider many of the purveyors of this lurid fiction to be among the finest literary practitioners, literature producers, and philosophy masters. Who are some of these knights of the pen?
Moving to a New City? Here Are 8 Tips for Building a Social Life from Scratch
Praxis alumnus and GrowthLion Media CEO Evan Le gave his breakdown of how to build a social life from scratch when you move to a new city. Here are his points, paraphrased with some additional mixed-in commentary from yours truly.
Incentives or Imposed Instruction?
On the one hand, you believe it’s not from the benevolence of the butcher that we get our meat, but by his regard to his self-interest in a market context. On the other hand, you believe that children have no regard for their self-interest and do not respond to market incentives so must be forced and directed to do what’s good for them and by extension society.
How My Daughter Reminded Me What Self-Directed Education Really Means
On the walk home from the park, I told my kids about this new idea for a dedicated time allotment for various “subjects.” I suggested that maybe it was something we could try and wanted to know what they thought about the idea. My 10-year-old daughter’s answer was priceless. “Mom, no, I don’t think so. That sounds sort of ‘schooly’, don’t you think?”
Intrinsic Motivation vs. Extrinsic Motivation
Maybe this isn’t a problem for you. Maybe you are perfectly willing to reward your child for good behavior until they move out, but for the rest of us, we want our children to want to be kind, to want to share, to want to help out around the house, to want to learn.
A Poor Way to Measure an Economy
After every disaster, we are told that there will be economic benefits due to the cleanup efforts. It’s obvious that many people will be working to rebuild, and will collect salaries, and will spend on all sorts of things. No doubt, there will be a blip in the local “domestic product.” But if that’s the entire story, why wait for a disaster? Why not take a wrecking ball to your own city, in order to spur demand and production?