In my previous post, we began a discussion of the War on Drugs™ by highlighting some of the failures of its close historical precedent, Prohibition. Not only are there parallels between the two that are quite instructive; in a sense, Prohibition begat the modern drug war. This is not to say that the War on Drugs™ began with the…
When I first heard friends getting excited about T-cell immunity to COVID-19, I was non-plussed. “This means the disease is less contagious than we thought!,” they said. And I replied, “You’re double-counting! I If some people are immune, that will already be reflected in existing estimates of R0.” As it turns out, however, my friends were right for…
There exist some people, usually called “economists,” who have a theory that explains why price ceilings create shortages. Most other people believe that there is no relation between prices and whether shelves are bare or fully stocked. Within this last category, there are those who insist that prices should be prevented from…
The federal government seems to have an almost inexhaustible willingness to waste money. At the same time we are experiencing a pandemic with a completely inadequate testing system, the government is contemplating spending many billions to send men back to the moon in 2024—55 years after the first moon landing. That would be about as exciting as flying a…
If I created my own school, what would it be like? Picture something like this: 1. The school has two goals: to (a) prepare students for independent adult life, and (b) give them a fun childhood. 2. Pursuant to 1(a), all students do at least 90 minutes of math every day. Most high-status jobs require good math skills, and…
I recently re-watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It was a particular favorite of mine in college, so I’d seen it many times before. But I had never really noticed how many lessons about economic opportunity there were to find in Holly Golightly’s life experiences. Trailer screenshot -Public Domain [Spoiler alert, in case you’ve been busy for the past 60 years.]…
Read Part 1 of my review. While Ritchie’s book does a laudable job in describing for the reader some of the most common pitfalls in scientific research, after these first chapters he starts to lose his way. He includes an additional chapter about what he calls “hype,” in which he tries to describe the risks that occur when…
When fellow professors discover that I homeschool my children, their most common reaction is: “How do you get any work done?” Hand to God, I’ve never found it hard. I started homeschooling my older sons back in 2015 when they were 12. They were already more mature than most adults will ever be, so Caplan…
I promised to post my latest Wall Street Journal op/ed after 30 days had expired. Here it is: The Virus May Strike Teachers Unions What happens when they refuse to do their jobs and it turns out home-schoolers are better at it anyway? By David R. Henderson July 29, 2020 12:38 pm ET If you have school-age children, you…
What’s the difference between invention and innovation? Could it be that innovation–the process of making a breakthrough invention available, affordable, and reliable–is actually the hard part? In this week’s EconTalk episode, author Matt Ridley talks about his book How Innovation Works with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Ridley argues that we give too much credit to inventors and not…