mrclay.org

From “Will he/they tour?“:
JP: We make any money if we tour for two weeks?
JL: You mean ten days, if rehearsals are included.
JP: Yes.
JL: No.
JP: Well then why would we do it?
RM: Because Menck wants to rock.
JL: Theoretically, the tour is just one piece of the things you do if you want to sell records.
JP: We [...]

From the left, Ezra Klein: the Bush tax cuts certainly majorly increased the deficit [CBO], and it’s unfair for the GOP to demand that the unemployment extension be deficit-neutral.
Further, if tax cuts don’t need to be paid for because they generate so much taxable economic activity that they pay for themselves, then neither do unemployment [...]

The Atlantic has a great piece on Paul Romer and his push for “charter cities”. I agree completely with Romer that fair laws with economic liberties is the only way to support economic growth. While probably true in the old world, very few countries remain impoverished simply because of geography. Tyrants plague the people of [...]

In November Californians will see on their ballot the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010. The act would basically “legalize” cannabis—all involved in such an industry would remain in violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act, and subject to the whims of the federal DEA and Dept. of Justice—for adults 21 and up, [...]

I can’t remember where, but I’m fairly certain I saw compelling evidence that nations with universal access to healthcare, contraceptives, and abortions have the lowest rates of abortions. Let’s assume this is true.
Also assume that the U.S. military, as well as foreign militaries aided by the U.S., engage in a perhaps small but non-zero number [...]

Today I heard the tail end of a fantastic This American Life episode based on a ProRepublica story on the hedge fund Magnetar. The short version is that, when the housing market started to appear unstable in 2005, Magnetar realized that bad incentives at investment banks would allow it to make money by creating a [...]

I’ve not read the original FairTax book, and have only flipped through the follow-up written to answer the critics, but I have spent many hours reading about it online over the years, and back when I listened to Boortz of course he pushed it. At the moment, I don’t see it as workable and I [...]

Lately Detroit’s terrible situation is given as proof that liberalism inevitably leads to cities lying in ruin with high unemployment, high crime, poor education outcomes, etc.

(First of the series “Getting rid of all these draft posts”)
Should we really go back to the Gold Standard?
I gather only Austrian school (Mises, Hayek, et al.) economists really think a return to “sound” money would be possible or beneficial to the economy, and most prominent economists think it would be disastrous. Has anyone even [...]