— Henry Hazlitt
— Matt Ridley
— Allen Dalton
Typical Exchange
- Me: Could you possibly iron my shirt? It takes me a lot longer than you and I need to shower.
- Dad: Could you possibly do the dishes? It took me a lot longer than it would take you if you did some.
- Me: I'll try to remember. But my shirt needs to be ironed now. I'm hopping in the shower.
Rent Seeking
- Brain: We must prepare for tomorrow night.
- Pinky: What are we doing tomorrow night?
- Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky—seeking out some rent!
— Mancur Olson
Be Wary
The invisible hand will smite you.
— Robert Wenzel
Comparative and Absolute Advantages in Task Distribution
This is a short analysis of task distribution within my own profession, hanging wallpaper.
A simple way to think about how different agents are assigned different tasks is by looking at solely two agents, A and H, and two tasks, 1 and 2, with the level of output, y, governed by y=ƒ(τ1, τ2), where τ1 and τ2 are the amounts of task 1 and 2 carried out. To understand which agent would perform which task more optimally it is normally assumed that the agents are heterogeneous (for if they had the same abilities to perform a task, deciding on which one would more optimally perform a task would be a pointless inquiry) and the tasks, similarly, are heterogeneous, requiring different skills. Agent A’s ability is characterized by the pair aA1, aA2, with aAi representing the maximum amount of task i (1, 2) he can perform if he devotes all of his time to it. Similarly, the pair (aH1, aH2) characterizes agent H’s ability. The final assumption of the model is that agents are free to perform both tasks.
— C. P. Cavafy
— Philostratus
![This is the first plaid shirt I’ve ever bought. This is the first Abercrombie shirt I’ve ever bought. It’s quite nice. Thrift store steals are behavior changers. Time to get back to writing papers.
[EDIT: See my younger brother’s baby picture? He definitely was (intentionally past tense) adorable.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2xyjc0fGK1qfeytko1_1280.jpg)
On Bourgeois Logic
Left-wing theory of economics? What is that even supposed to mean? Economics isn’t “left” or “right” wing. There are Socialists who are Austrian. There are Republicans who are Keynesian. There are Democrats who are Neo-Classical (though it’s more rare). … In fact, most the Democrats and Republicans tend to be Neo-Liberal in their economic beliefs (just look at the trade legislations).
Left-wing economics sounds pretty foolish now I realize. You probably have a broader and more detailed knowledge of economics as a whole than me, I have a general disdain for the subject.
I’m an Econ major who focuses much time on the history of political economy alongside more fully understanding the mainstream perceptions and why they persist. In a sense, I focus on many different types of economics out of requirement in order to go into academia in the future. I view economics as the study of the ordinary business of life. I have no disdain for the subject; simply, I have a disdain for the boxes people are put in in order to calculate likelihoods as if their chances are deterministically true while extensively rejecting prominent features of living things and the world, randomness and therefore unpredictability. Certainly being able to weigh out likelihoods is beneficial; but only to a degree. If perfect knowledge existed and past events were fully understood and actions altered in accordance, then predictions based on the past would still be impossible because we wouldn’t have a data set to base possible actions on. Anyway, this has turned into a rant. Let’s continue.
(Source: baseballlibertarian)
