China Closer Than Chicago but Hawaii is Further
How far away is China from the United States? If you live on America’s west coast and buy or sell goods, China is usually closer than Chicago. Factories across the U.S. ship goods by...
Category: Economic Thinking
Catalonia a Nation or Barcelona a City-State?
The NSDA Public Forum topic for January: “Resolved: Spain should grant Catalonia its independence,” opens students to a range of complicated politics, economics, and history. The 2020 NCFCA topic on E.U. immigration reform also...
Notes on Reforming Federal Labor Law
Proposed Stoa policy resolution for the coming year: Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reform its labor law. An Ethos Debate post, “The Ethos Guide to the 2017-2018 Stoa Policy Resolutions,” (April...
A Tale of Two Factories: Equity, Economic Freedom, and the Modern Factory
People in Ireland and Chile today, and in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, are not better people than those who lived and worked there fifty years ago. But for some reason people...
North & South: Freedom, Equity, Prosperity and Turmoil (plus Romance)
For students researching and debating the freedom vs. equity value topic, Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel, North and South, is food for thought. The novel, set in 1850, contrasts the traditions and values of the aristocratic...
Riding Down the Cost Curve: Shale and Oil Sands Extraction
The eyes and minds of engineers can’t look everyone at once. Every engineering project has an opportunity cost measured by the fruits of alternative engineering challenges left unexplored. One reason Saudi Arabian policy kept...
Costs and Benefits of Immigration in Texas and California
Welfare state programs and business regulations distorted the immigration process for California in ways very different from Texas. Texas government policies are more open to enterprise and its booming economy is putting latin american...
TexasWorld!
Imagine a World in the State of Texas… Notes from a talk given to the New York City Junto. To illustrate that the world is not in any meaningful way overpopulated, Julian Simon, author...
From Poland to Peru: Black Markets, Parallel Societies
by Gregory F. Rehmke “This movement should create a situation in which authorities will control empty stores, but not the market; the employment of workers, but not their livelihood; the official media, but not...
Did Ebenezer Scrooge Dream a Better Life for Himself?
George C. Scott brought Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge to life in the 1990s on a television special. Scott played Scrooge as a competent and thoughtful businessman who finds both Christmas and philanthropy a waste of time...