Learning Is The First Step
This article discusses the fact that taxation has a multiplier defect, just as government spending has a multiplier effect. Once this is brought into a coherent macroeconomic model, the magical relative benefit of government spending compared to private spending vanishes. In the standard narrative when government spends money it can proceed to be used in … Read more
This article is a collections of my notes from a Bible study today, 9/28/14: If you sin on accident, or you do something you do not think is sin but it actually is, you are still sinning. Leviticus 4 Why did God give us all these weird commands? To help us remember him. Deuteronomy 8:11 … Read more
The United Methodist Church is going through an internal struggle right now. I recently shared this article on Facebook. The article discusses the fact that the more liberal strains of the United Methodist Church, particularly as demonstrated by support for the LGBTQ movement, are facing strong reductions in attendance and membership, while other conferences are … Read more
I previously discussed risk and uncertainty here and I will continue the discussion in this article. Basically, I found this article which summed it up nicely. Economic risk refers to a probabilistic event which is quantifiable and may be taken into account in transaction calculations by utilizing an expected value framework. Gambling would be a … Read more
Most people with an eye for economics are aware of the Socialist Calculation Problem, also known as the Economic Calculation Problem, but did you know that calculation problems exist outside of Communism as well? Asymmetric information is a less severe form of the Economic Calculation Problem, but it can still cause transaction failure – whether … Read more
An argument for income equality has often been based on the moral argument for fairness called the Veil of Ignorance. Originally put forth by John Rawls, this argument holds that equality is fair because it is the social distribution we would find ideal if we were perfectly ignorant. Four General Disagreements I disagree in … Read more
My friend shared the following meme on facebook (except I added “Get the full story at…”): Consider the following response I gave: Chris, do you agree that if they were forced to share profits then they might not have gone into business to begin with? It could be that forced sharing of profits with the … Read more
In thinking about the relationship between Christianity and Economics, it is interesting to consider the possibility of adapting a style of Christian apologetics into an approach to economics thought. The particular style this article is concerned with is the idea of presuppositionalism. In short, presuppositionalism argues for Christianity by attempting to prove the absurdity of … Read more
Some of the strongest economic arguments for government intervention are based on the calculation of so-called social prices. These social prices may also be referred to as social costs, social benefits, or, less properly, external costs and external benefits. The problem is that these social costs are miscalculated works of fiction and in reality market … Read more
Quote 1: “The problems faced by the city of Dhaka illustrate the difficulties of effectively addressing the free rider problem through a private mechanism. Goods that suffer from this free rider problem are known in economics as public goods, and they are the focus of this chapter.” Gruber, Jonathan (2012-12-01). Public Finance and Public Policy … Read more