Broback's Blog

Some miscellaneous random clips I snagged this week. Classic examples of the ongoing and pervasive real-world manifestations of what students learn in Public Choice Theory 101. Might provide a little balance to those who obsess single-mindedly over “Market Failure.” Officers were told to arrest people who were doing little more than standing on the street, […]

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Note! Downloading videos is a violation of the YouTube terms of service. See below. Personal, temporary use is not an approved scenario. Based on this information, suggest you limit your caching to sites that are OK with this behavior, or do as I now do and leverage the ability of iTunes to cache locally — […]

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Man of good faith and reason can differ on what an appropriate rate of societal wealth appropriation and redistribution is — but the recent volleys back and forth on the Romney tax rate have me scratching my head over the approach taken by many in the collectivist camp. Normally I’d say one’s level of outrage […]

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I’ve had this queued up for some time, but Krugman’s recent assertions (and subsequent backpedaling) about capital gains taxation inspired me to take this live. This is perfect. As Boudreaux tackles the question “Who is today’s Bastiat?” as proposed by David Henderson, he puts forth the best description I’ve heard yet of what Paul Krugman […]

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It’s not just housing bubbles that are caused by good intentions and market intervention. Mungowitz reports on yet another prime example of Soviet-style meddling in the U.S. pharmaceutical market. While the Food and Drug Administration monitors the safety and supply of the drugs, which are sold both as generics and under brand names like Ritalin […]

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Given the recent SEC indictments, I couldn’t resist this passage from Krugman in July of 2008 (emphasis mine:) “But here’s the thing: Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the explosion of high-risk lending a few years ago, an explosion that dwarfed the S.& L. fiasco. In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly […]

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Here may be an entrepreneurial opportunity. Register at thousands of sites using a variety of non-intuitive unique email address that are used nowhere else. When you start getting emails about viagra sent to one of these addresses, flag the related site in a database as one to avoid. Build a browser plugin that accesses that […]

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A fitting legacy. This troll of global proportions who threatened to turn Seoul’s presidential palace office into a “sea of fire,” will be be thought of in this hilarious context for all time. Many thanks to Parker, Stone and team for this lasting impression.

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Had a chance to sit in on Steve Blank’s Lean Launchpad class last week at the Haas School of Business. Came away very impressed with the real-world/pragmatic aspects to his curriculum, and the enthusiasm of everyone in the room. Prior to attending the class I decided to read through Steve’s blog, and came across a […]

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Harvard Professor Greg Mankiw wrote about the students who walked out of his introductory econ class because “the biased nature of Economics 10 contributes to and symbolizes the increasing economic inequality in America.” He hit upon a few points that I’ve been meaning to post about. I’ve wanted to go into detail how those with […]

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