joshuago’s economics Bookmarks

What we discovered, of course, was that innovation survived the death of its institutions. High tech companies didn't own innovation; the innovators did. News organizations don't own journalism: journalists do.

Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice.

The United States hopes to create a strong central government in Afghanistan -- but is such state building possible? Yes, and policymakers should look to Louis XIV and the development of France's ancien régime for guidance.

If the providers of information aren’t providing the basic explainers that turn people into customers for that information, they don’t deserve those customers and won’t retain them. If explanation is required for information acquisition, then the explainer comes “before” the informer as a pre-requisite. We typically have it the other way around.

How did Americans end up with a system in which employers pay for our health insurance? After all, they don't pay for our groceries or our gas.

Could it be that the last chance to save a young family from foreclosure is a 28-year-old Pakistani-American playwright-attorney who learned bankruptcy law on the Internet? A fun and informative, if at times infuriating, read.

In the chaos of the liberal free-market, we tend to lack not so much freedom, as the chance to use it well. We lack guidance, self-understanding, self-control, direction. Being left alone to ruin our lives as we please is not a liberty worth revering.

Washington's paralysis is becoming intolerable, says Philip Howard. He says the government is burdened by too much law and too many entitlements. The health care system can't provide quality care efficiently. Legal reform would force officials to take responsibility for their actions.

In his columns, Krugman is belligerently, obsessively political, but this aspect of his personality is actually a recent development. His parents were New Deal liberals, but they weren’t especially interested in politics. In his academic work, Krugman focused mostly on subjects with little political salience.

The reason health care, cap and trade, and the other blocks of Obama’s New Foundation are unpopular isn’t public ignorance. It’s that the public sees them as counterproductive—and in many cases beside the point.