Economic Thinking Posts on Debate Topics
Civilization began as societies learned to plant and raise grain, fruit, and vegetables in farms, orchards, and gardens rather than wander the countryside gathering them, and learned to raise and herd cattle rather than...
Why be stupid about California water, fish, and energy? Federal marine natural resource policies, not nature, are at the heart of stupid for California’s recent water shortage. The Federal government’s Central Valley Project “annually...
It seems a crime for students to debate federal marine natural resources policies all year without addressing overcriminalization. According to Five Solutions for Addressing Environmental Overcriminalization, “Texas has 11 felonies related to oyster harvesting.” Couldn’t Texas...
Much in the public policy world invites reform. Broken federal policies and programs abound. The quest for policy debaters is to craft and advocate reform proposals likely to make the world a better place....
What I’ve wondered for years and wish a debater would research: why not use new deep drilling technologies and geothermal energy to turn saltwater to freshwater from mountain tops? Below is picture along California...
Terry Anderson and Bryan Leonard discuss the economics of managing international fisheries in their article Fish of Fence? Sovereign-to-Sovereign Relations in High Seas Fisheries. The abstract and article are available online.
The House of Representatives and Executive Branch disagree on the federal role for marine natural resource policies. Doc Hastings Chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources and lists the new bureaucratic layers established by...
If you owned a river, how would you manage it? You could let it flow freely and naturally and feel at peace with the world. But nature has some rough edges and in times...
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...
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...