By Jack McHugh on 2/27/2008 9:56 PM

MIRS News reports today that some members of the government school establishment want the state to spend $750,000 of your money to determine how much it costs to educate a K-12 student in different parts of the state. I can save them some money and time and give the answer right now: Who knows? Further, there's no way to know. Read More »

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/27/2008 2:28 PM

The odd thing about this clip is I'm not sure who's supposed to be the protagonist.

 

Here's a great characterization of how an election year brings out promises from candidates that everyone will reap all manner of reward if they're elected, and no one will have to pay the cost.  Of course, government has nothing to give except that which it takes, but with enough smooth talk voters can be led to forget that. As Frederic Bastiat once said, "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

By James H on 2/26/2008 1:32 PM

Spring Break will be coming soon, and I've always considered the road trip to be the quintessential type of spring break. Hop in a car with some friends and crash around the country, trying to stay over at long-distance friends houses each night.

But you have to do more than a coast-to-coast tear. There are sights that must be seen. And so, courtesy of the Heritage Foundation, I recommend the Pork Vacation Tour. Stop in and see your tax dollars in action at the Bop at the Big Top Chautaqua in Wisconsin or the National Mule and Packers Museum in California. Here are some potential stops:

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/26/2008 11:33 AM

An article in yesterday's National Post details record low temps and snowfalls this year in the face of cries of apocalyptic global warming made by that pesky species whose survival must always be viewed as a threat to the rest of the earth - man.  From the article:

"...remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year."

If I were pointing to this fact as a proof that there is no overall climate trend in one direction or another I'd be just as dumb as those who show use a picture of a floating polar bear as proof that mankind is burning up the globe.  One winter's temp is not any sort of scientific evidence for any kind of long-term climate.  But, this winter's cold, and the last 8 years of essentially stable temps should at least be given some attention and explanation by those telling us to buy kayaks so we can get around New York City in 2010.  The article put it well:

"OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can ru ... Read More »

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Morehouse Less Government

By Jason Gillman Jr. on Friday, February 22, 2008 6:49 PM

I'm currently taking ECO 222 - Behavioral Economics. The class shows how different factors affect the market. For each of the experiments, we students act out a market scenario. Each experiment usually has 2 or 3 "Sessions" whereby different factors come into play. After we do this, we record the data and subsequently answer questions - our homework. It's actually quite an interesting way to learn the different aspects. One of our recent ones was concerning minimum wage. Read More »

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/21/2008 10:15 AM

By Jack McHugh on 2/20/2008 9:24 AM

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/19/2008 11:56 AM

The 2008 state budget spends nearly $1.5 billion more than the 2007 budget.  Below are the ten biggest-spending Republicans and Democrats in both the state House and state Senate, along with lists of the most frugal lawmakers. (Only those legislators who made all the budget votes are listed). The data was compiled by the Mackinac Center, link here.

*It should be noted, some legislators voted NO on the spending bills because they thought the bills did not spend ENOUGH.

Ten Biggest-Spending House Republicans:

Rank    Name                           Location/District                     Increased $$$ 

1. tie)  Bill Caul                       Mt. Pleasant/99         & ... Read More »

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Morehouse Less Government

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/19/2008 9:50 AM

A great letter to the editor of the Washington Post by George Mason University econ. professor and blogger at Cafe Hayek, Don Boudreaux:

Dear Editor:

I'm forever flabbergasted by the preposterously low standards to which politicians are held.  Case in point: in today's lead editorial ("Trading Down") you correctly note that Senators Clinton and Obama each now is trumpeting more and more wrongheaded populist themes - including suspicion of trade - only to increase her or his chances of securing the nomination.  So by your own assessment (which I share) the next President of the United States might well be someone who endorses policies that he or she knows to be unwise AND who lies in order to score with the electorate.

If a man tonight falsely assures a woman of his undying love only to score with her, we rightly regard him as a sleazeball.  But when politicians do essentially the same thing, save on a much larger scale, we call them "public servants" and treat them as our saviors.  Very strange.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/16/2008 7:52 AM

MIRS News 2/14/2008

Cool Cities 2.0 Summit Coming This Fall
Detroit will host the second International Creative Cities Summit in October, Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced today.

"Creative Cities 2.0" is being billed as providing a next-generation look at how communities are integrating innovation, social entrepreneurship, arts & culture and business to make vibrant economies. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority's (MSHDA) Cool Cities Team is a key organizer for the event.

The Summit will be held Oct. 13-15, with topics to include place making, talent attraction and retention strategies and best practices for economic and social development. The initial Creative Cities Summit held in St. Petersburg, Fla. in 2004, was one of the first creative economy events in the United States.

"We want to showcase Michigan, not only to the world, but to ourselves," said Karen Gagnon, MSHDA's Cool Cities team leader.

--------

Conference center reservations:   Five thousand dollars.

Trans ... Read More »

By Jack McHugh on 2/15/2008 11:17 AM

Gov. Granholm proposes borrowing more than $1 billion to spend on state and university building projects, "small" high schools, and adding even more debt by "stealing" road construction money from the future. She calls it a "stimulus" package (of course).

To maintain state government business-as-usual, and now to expand it, the Governor and the entire Michigan political establishment are pretending that Michigan's depression is just a cyclical downturn. They are refusing to acknowledge what everyone else realizes, which is that we're in the midst of a structural downsizing of the entire state economy.

To put this in more human terms, it’s one thing for a person who works in a seasonal industry to seek a home improvement loan during the off-season, knowing that the on-season will roll along in due course. It’s another thing entirely for that person to borrow for a home addition if he’s lost his job altogether.

Our governor and political establishment are acting just like the borrowers in the subprime mess. “Hey, loan me the money. I'm sure my house will only increase in value, my future income will only increase, and I won't ever lose my job!”

The proposed government borrowing is truly unfortunate, because it act ... Read More »

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/15/2008 10:02 AM

A great post from The Knowledge Problem blog by Lynne Kiesling:

This new article in Science tackles a question that I've had for years, and is creating a stir in the process: once you take into account the emissions of carbon during the corn growing process, what is the net effect of ethanol production and use on carbon concentrations?

Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. Using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.

See also the discussion in the Seattle Times and in Read More »

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/14/2008 10:56 AM

In a recent blog entry I discussed the effect of government continuing to grow even when the economy and population begin to shrink.  The high revenues government pulls in during a robust economy enable politicians to create all kinds of luxury programs and services well outside the traditional scope of government, and when times get tight they rarely cut the programs.

The entry began by accepting three (rather dubious) assumptions which are often made:

1) Government must provide a certain number of services that cannot be provided by voluntary means

2) The level of government services must increase as the economy grows

3) The level of government services must increase as the population grows

After accepting these assumptions, the post went on to detail how even when these conditions are reversed, government still grows.

Some would complain that we should've begun from opposite assumptions - that is, when these conditions are reversed is precisely when government should grow.  This argument has many forms, but it was advanced most notably by the late economist John Maynard Keynes and has been attempted by many politicians, particularly Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  The general idea is that the free-market can meet most human needs (except some basic government services) under strong economic conditions, but during a recession government must greatly increase ... Read More »

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/12/2008 3:03 PM

The snowstorm held up the person who was planning to video tape the event, so all we were able to get was with a very small camera with limited memory. That's why it looks so dark, and why the last half of Q&A and both presenters closing comments got cut off. But, what's here is still some good stuff!!! The event is broken up into five videos, part I below.

Also - someone was there taping from WKAR's show "Focal Point", and it is supposed to air on an upcoming Saturday, 7:30 PM. 

(Check out parts II-V on youtube.)

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/11/2008 10:11 PM

From Ray Wilson at www.kaltax.org:

Administrators at Western Michigan University are making plans to establish a new medical school here in Kalamazoo. They say that a med school would be a natural fit with our community's two hospitals, Pfizer facilities, and other life-sciences companies.

Perhaps it would. On the other, the idea of a new WMU medical school deserves some skepticism. Here's why.

Michigan's population is declining. We are one of only two states to actually lose people in the most recent census. Clearly, our state's lousy economy has a lot to do with that. And a large part of the population loss is our young people, who don't see much of a future here in the rust belt.

That means our colleges and universities are competing for a dwindling pool of students. WMU suffered a big loss in enrollment in recent years. Perhaps WMU officials believe that a shiny new med school will help attract more students.

It might, but another school of thought (forgive the pun) holds that when you're in trouble and not doing well, the best thing to do is re-trench, get back to the basics, and focus on the fundamentals. To use a sports analogy, if you're the coach of a losing football team, do you practice harder at the fundamentals--blocking and tackling--or do you practice a wild, flea-flicker Statue of Liberty play to try to turn your team around?
< ... Read More »

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/9/2008 6:14 AM

Let's say we believe government needs to provide a certain set of services to the public, services that cannot be handled any other way but through confiscatory taxation and government management.

Let's also say that as people increase in wealth and standard of living, the number of things the government must do increases. (I know, this seems counter-intuitive, because as people gain wealth they can do more things for themselves, but just play along.)

Let's also say that as population grows, government needs to increase its level of involvement as well, and may even need to do more proportionately because more people add new challenges. (Again, put aside the counter-intuitiveness of this assumption. I know it reversed the concept of economies of scale, but forget that for now.)

OK, so we are now assuming that:

1) Government must provide a certain number of services that cannot be provided by voluntary means

2) The level of government services must increase as the economy grows

3) The level of government services must increase as the population grows

But is the converse also true?  If certain government services begin to be offered by the private sector, should government stop providing them?  If the economy begins to shrink, should government services also shrink?  If the population begins to shrink, should government services as well?  Let's see what we do in to our personal lives...

Say you pay someone to mow your lawn every week.  A new neighbor moves in, and he decides to mow your ... Read More »

By Isaac Morehouse on 2/8/2008 6:19 PM

By slemrod on 2/7/2008 7:45 PM

Dan Mitchell from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity and the Cato Institute gives a concise explanation of the laffer curve, which relates tax rates to government revenue. Politicians, such as Rudy Giuliani who claim that tax cuts "pay for themselves" are wrong. However, some tax cuts can bring in more revenue if tax rates are on the left side of the laffer curve. This video should be required viewing for all politicians. See for yourself:

 

 

By slemrod on 2/7/2008 3:07 AM

I couldn't make this one up...

 

By slemrod on 2/7/2008 2:58 AM

As Congress debates the Bush Administration's jaw-dropping $3.1 trillion budget that was delivered to Congress on Monday, earmarks are a main focus of the debate. Earmarks are funds that lawmakers insert into spending bills during Committee reports, and they are often free from any discussion over their merit. The Bridge to Nowhere, a $240+ million bridge to an Alaskan town of about fifty residents, sparked the debate a few years ago. Some politicians think that the handful of Congressman who stand up to wasteful spending are wasting their own time, because "earmarks don't make up a large portion of federal spending." Don Boudreaux, Chariman of the George Mason Department of Economics and author of the wonderful blog Cafe Hayek, brilliantly points out the flaw in this line of argument.

"    Rick Perlstein suggests that it's petty and unjustified to criticize Sen. Hillary Clinton for earmarking $1M of taxpayers' funds to pay for a museum at Woodstock ("Getting Past the '60s? It's Not Going to Happen," February 3).  His argument is that the amount of money involved is so relatively small - only "one-millionth of the federal budget."

    The ethical standards to which we hold politicians are truly meager.  Mr. Perlstein apparently cares neither about the constitutionality of such earmarks nor about whether or not they serve the public interest.  Earmarks such as this one are okay, in his view, simply because the size of each one is so paltry in comparison with Uncle Sam's budget.  I wonder if Mr. Perlstein or Sen. Clinton would excuse me if I refused to pay my taxes this year on grounds that my taxes are an infinitesimal portion of federal revenue.

    Sincerely,
    Donald J. Boudreaux "