Categories: "Economics"

Justice on econtalk

May 13th, 2012
One of the things I appreciated about this episode was the explicit accounting of three perspectives with respect to social justice:  that from the standpoint of natural rights, the question of effectiveness towards ends, and that of how the institution… more »

more soup power

February 29th, 2012
Along the way to dispute the identity of money and wealth, I said that money developed from commodities that held intrinsic (albeit subjective) value and had those other characteristics, ... more »

soup power

February 28th, 2012
I will attempt to refute the notions of money as wealth, and capitalism as a system of conquest, in this exposition that analogizes the ingredients of a soup for the complementary factors of production.   I attempted this draft in e-prime. Wealth makes… more »

overcoming tragedy on econtalk

February 24th, 2012
on the nobel prize-winning study of how people sometimes overcome the tragedy of the commons, pointing out how people are able to develop arrangements on their own for dealing with public goods. Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom, and the Bloomington School… more »

airline profits from carbon tax?

February 20th, 2012
So, airlines can profit from EU carbon tax?   I confess to some skepticism about the claim The rationale is less than convincing, that these profits accrue because the airlines can charge passengers for the cost by way of higher fares.  The idea harken… more »

Smith: Theory of Moral Sentiments, on econtalk

February 20th, 2012
This side project was a six part book club discussion of "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" (1759), which besides the Wealth of Nations (1776) is perhaps the most well known writings of 18th century economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) Theory of Moral Senti… more »

on the perpetuation of ignorance

January 29th, 2012
One of my regular podcasts is The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, which features a "science or fiction" segment where the host tries to stump the panel to distinguish obscure science news items from roughly plausible science fictions, following up with… more »

the singularity on econtalk

January 3rd, 2011
The subject matter for this episode holds my interest, but the discussion ended with a stark and bleak dystopian vision that I originally had no interest in writing about (which writing here shows I changed my mind about that).  A couple interesting his… more »

the crisis, summary, on econtalk

May 17th, 2010
This 'cast condenses into 90 minutes the prior 18 months or so of observation, analysis, and theorizing about the financial crisis.  Roberts' strengths include being able to develop coherent narratives that relate well-known observations of human behavi… more »

black swans on econtalk

May 3rd, 2010
Taleb makes the point that debt makes us fragile - the more the worse. I don't think our political leaders recognize this problem.  Taleb was also recently interviewed on Planet Money. Black Swans, Fragility, and Mistakes (5/3/2010) - Nassim Taleb, au… more »