Caplin on Expressive Voting

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Source: Bryan Caplan, “Expressive Voting, Emigration, and Alsace-Lorraine,” econlog.com, August 19, 2013 

Rogers on Wealth Taxes and Jobs

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Source: T.J. Rogers, "Targeting the Wealthy Kills Jobs," The Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2013, p. A17

Ikeda on Efficiency vs. Competition

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Source: Sandy Ikeda, “Bookstore Wars: Creativity versus Scale,” fee.org/the_freeman, August 16, 2013

 

Learn Liberty Video on Scalping

This is the note I added when posting the video on Facebook for the Dixie College Students for Liberty:

Following Hurricane Sandy last November, the Governors of New Jersey and New York activated anti-gouging laws to prevent gas stations from raising prices and gouging consumer.  The result were shortages of gasoline that lasted much longer than they needed to.  Those first in line would take as much as they could carry.  This meant those at the end of the line were out of luck since the early customers had pumped out all the gas.  If prices had been allowed to rise, many those in the front would have taken only what they "needed" leaving more for others further back who also "needed" it.

Higher prices would have encouraged gasoline jobbers in upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and other places within range of Sandy’s deviation to postpone their normal deliveries and redirect their efforts at getting the higher profits available in impacted areas.  Because the governors in the impacted states froze the prices, most gasoline jobbers did not change their normal behavior and rush the extra gasoline that was needed on the coast.

But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages. Adam Smith, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”

Scalping and gouging are moral acts!

Perry on the Kennedy Tax Cuts

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Economic growth was slow in the 1950s.  The boom began with the Kennedy tax cuts.  
 
Source: Mark Perry, "Let’s Not Forget The Decade The Liberals Love To Hate: The 1960s And President Kennedy’s Successful,Supply-Side Tax Cuts," aei-ideas.org, August 17, 2013

Pethokoukis on Inequality

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Source: James Pethokoukis, "Stunning New Study Dismantles Obama’s '1% vs. 99%' Inequality Argument," aei-ideas.org, August 16, 2013

McArdle on Wonder Bread

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Source: Megan McArdle, "How Wonder Bread Fed the Women's Movement, bloomberg.com, August 15, 2013