Tag Archives: economics

podcasts

Economic Illiteracy, What’s Wrong with America and More – Podcasts for May 9

Each week I present a round-up of the podcasts I listen to. These podcasts are all centered around the theme of looking at current events through the lens of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. This week, there are two shows with Yaron Brook and Leonard Peikoff answers philosophical questions. Amy Peikoff also had a podcast this week, but I simply didn’t have the time to listen. Hopefully, I will include it in next week’s round-up.

Peikoff.com Podcast – Episode 407

1914 Webster's Dictionary

My 1914 Webster’s New International Dictionary

In this week’s podcast from Peikoff.com, Leonard Peikoff read more

[Video] Why Inequality is Good for the Individual – Yaron Brook

Equality sucks, inequality is great.Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute, spent several weeks recently on a speaking tour through Europe and Russia. The theme for these talks, largely, was the theme of his, with Don Watkins, forthcoming book: the idea that equality is unfair and that inequality is moral and just.

This particular talk was given at  Högerteknologerna and Fria Moderata Studentförbundet, Sweden. Before he begin the main talk, he commented that in other places where he had given talks the Q&A sessions read more

Quote of the Day: Economic and Political Power

Capitalism: The Unknown IdealToday’s quote comes from Ayn Rand’s essay “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business” from Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Leading up to this quote, she describes what economic and political power are and in this quote defines the difference between them.

Now let me define the difference between economic power and political power: economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, read more

School Budget – Here We Go Again

Pre-K Drives School Draft Budget Up

School budgetThat was one of the headlines in the local paper over an article detailing how the St. Johnsbury School directors have voted to approve a proposed $365,000 increase (about 2.3%) in the school budget with the bulk of the increase going to fund “universal prekindergarten.” This funding is to implement the program one year ahead of the date required (July 1, 2016) by Vermont’s recently passed universal pre-k mandate.

While prekindergarten has been getting a lot of press of late, read more

Economic Ignorance on Display – Electric Vehicle Edition

A year ago I wrote a short post on an example of economic ignorance on the part of town officials here in St. Johnsbury. Such examples are hardly rare, and today’s Caledonian Record has another one.

In June the town secured funding to install an electric vehicle charging station. A state grant will cover 75% of the $15,000 price tag with Green Mountain Power covering the rest.  The chairman of the St. Johnsbury select board is quoted as saying:

I’m not sure we need one but if it can read more

Education, Climate Change and Inequality: The Assault on Reason

Every living creature has a means of survival. Plants have roots and leaves to gain nutrients and energy. Birds have wings to seek out food while escaping predators. Predators, such as lions or wolves, have speed, instincts, claws and fangs with which to chase down and consume their prey. While man cannot survive by any of these methods he does have his own means of survival- his rational faculty. His reason.

Ayn Rand sums it up this way in The Virtue of Selfishness:

Man cannot survive, as animals read more

Effect of “A Bit Less Profit” – Quote of the Day

While I do not agree 100% with what Andrew Mellon talks about in his 1924 book, Taxation: The People’s Business, I do wish more of today’s politicians would read it before they advocate for some of the economic measures they champion, such as higher corporate taxes, higher taxes on the “rich”, sales tax on medical devices, and higher minimum wages to name a few.

This quote of just one sentence comes in the context of a discussion on the effect of the high tax rates at the read more

Really, the “Middle Class” is Moving Up

Monday I shared a link on my Facebook page to an article titled “Yes, the middle class has been disappearing, but they haven’t fallen into the lower class, they’ve risen into the upper class.”  This received the following response:

75k is not “Upper class”. To reach the top 20% household income needs to be about 250k/yr. To reach the 1%, household income needs to be about 1.6m/yr. This article is meant to quell the masses. If this article were true, the population would read more

Economic Ignorance on Display

Yesterday in the local paper there was a short article about the school district buying 60 iPads to distribute to some of the students.

Leaving aside such issues as how 60 iPads can be divided among several hundred students or whether iPads, in and of themselves, can actually aid students in actually learning (which I doubt), my main take away from the article is the economic ignorance on display.

As reported in the July 19, 2013 Caledonian Record:

School officials initially planned to purchase the read more

Price Controls are Bad, and Minimum Wage is a Price Control

You would think it should be common sense.

If prices are arbitrarily set too low, more people will want to but the product or service and fewer will want to produce it, and a shortage results.  If prices are set arbitrarily too high,more people will want to produce the product or service, but fewer will want to buy it, resulting in a glut.

One only has to reflect on the recent stories from Venezuela where, among other staple goods, there is a shortage of toilet paper.  Why?  Because the government read more