Economic Thinking Posts on Debate Topics
Just as we learn the Earth has stopped warming for awhile, climate concerns have been turned to the Pacific Ocean. The Seattle Times published a full-color supplement last sunday titled “Sea Change,” funded by the Pulitzer...
In 2012, the drought-stricken Western United States will ship more than 50 billion gallons of water to China. This water will leave the country embedded in alfalfa–most of it grown in California–and is destined...
“Dozens of different groups—from residents to corporate interests to environmental advocates—have long held divergent views on how water should be allocated and managed in the three states [Georgia, Alabama, & Florida],” Apalachicola Riverkeeper’s website says....
Twenty-five years of Shark Week on Discovery Channel! Who knew? Year twenty-six started in August with a week of shark specials including “Sharknado” actress Tara Reid explaining what she learned about whale sharks from...
Federal election law reforms, like most policy reforms, add layers of regulation to the legislative onion. Law and established tradition becomes ever more corrupted by legislation, where legislators and regulators endeavor to plug the leaks and...
A news article on the recent deaths of dolphins along the Atlantic coast includes this interesting personal story about Bob Schoelkopf, a former dolphin trainer and now opponent of dolphin captivity: … His diving...
Who knew that “tens of millions” of rubber ducks race rivers for charity. Curtis Ebbesmeyer, in a KUOW radio interview, discusses the popular charity races where people can bet on (or “adopt”) a rubber duck for...
In May 2012, a majority of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to bar the adoption of new catch-share programs along the Atlantic Coast or in the Gulf of Mexico. In the...
Bryan Caplan, in The Myth of the Rational Voter, examines why democratic majorities tend to vote for people and policies that slow social progress and economic prosperity. Caplan argues that voters tend to make systematic errors...
Jeffrey Smith’s June 12, 2013 article in The Atlantic, “‘Walking-Around Money’: How Machine Politics Works in America Today,” takes a look at the long history of paying for votes in U.S. elections. Get Out...