Lower the Debt Ceiling - Mark Thornton - Mises Daily

Lower the Debt Ceiling - Mark Thornton - Mises Daily: "reducing the debt ceiling would force the government to stop borrowing so much money from credit markets. This would leave significantly more credit available for the private sector. The shortage of capital is one of the most often cited reasons for the failure of the economy to recover."

Was the Space Shuttle Worth It? - Timothy D. Terrell - Mises Daily

Was the Space Shuttle Worth It? - Timothy D. Terrell - Mises Daily: "One NASA estimate — on the low end, because it does not account for inflation — is $115.5 billion, or around $860 million per launch. That's still far higher than NASA's original projection of $7 million per launch, predicated as it was on far more frequent launches. Two more recent estimates are $193 billion (in 2010 dollars) and $211 billion. For the program's 135 launches, that's $1.43 billion and $1.56 billion per launch, respectively."

Subsidized Grief - Mark A. Pribonic - Mises Daily

Subsidized Grief - Mark A. Pribonic - Mises Daily: "The repair of one house destroyed by violent winds is the responsibility of the homeowner and the insurance company. But if the same house is flattened along with hundreds of others in close proximity, it now becomes the responsibility of the taxpayers, even though the personal loss is no greater than for the stand-alone home."

"A family crouched in their basement awaiting the arrival of a destructive storm must hope that, if their house is destroyed, many others will be too. Similarly, if one is facing a potentially deadly situation, one may hope that numerous others will meet their fate at the same time and place, because then one's heirs will receive greater benefits."

Beneficiaries of Trade: You and Me | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary

Beneficiaries of Trade: You and Me | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary: "So, when the BEA reports that imports 'subtracted' two percentage points from economic growth in the past quarter, that doesn't mean that GDP would have grown that much faster without those pesky imports. It only means that other components — private and government expenditures, investment, and exports — were overstated by that amount. The subtraction reduces the overstatement, not real gross domestic product."

"Civilian employment expanded at a healthy 1.4% a year during periods of rising trade deficits, while job growth was virtually zero during stretches when the deficit was shrinking. The jobless rate declined an average of 0.4 percentage points per year when the trade gap was on an upward trend, and jumped a painful one point per year when the deficit was trending down. Apparently, the only thing worse for the U.S. economy than a rising trade deficit is a falling one."

Ode to the Warehouse - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily

Ode to the Warehouse - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily: "every item stored in a warehouse is seemingly idle in an economic sense, not currently employed in consumption or production. Everything is held here on the presumption that at some point someone will purchase it. This cannot be known for sure. It is a speculation, an entrepreneurial judgment that could be right or wrong.

If there were perfect information about the future, the warehouse wouldn't exist at all. All goods would be manufactured on a need-be basis only, with no storage needed or necessary. Despite its stillness and orderly calm, then, the warehouse embodies a wild leap into the unknown — a physical monument to the human capacity to imagine a future we cannot see."

Why U.S. Leaders Deceive Their Own People | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary

Why U.S. Leaders Deceive Their Own People | Ted Galen Carpenter | Cato Institute: Commentary: "officials in democratic political systems are more likely to deceive their own people — even engaging in outright lies — than officials in autocratic systems. His reasoning on that point is solid, and he provides compelling evidence to support his case. Mearsheimer's thesis is that democratic leaders are much more dependent than autocrats on public support for foreign policy initiatives, especially when an initiative includes going to war. If the available evidence is weak that a major security threat exists, but political leaders believe that taking military action is in the national interest, a powerful incentive exists to inflate the threat to gain badly needed public support."

"political leaders are much more inclined to lie involving wars of choice rather than wars of necessity"

Gettysburg: Saving the Union at What Cost? | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Gettysburg: Saving the Union at What Cost? | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Today U.S. officials criticize, and sometimes even bomb, other governments which forcibly prevent secession. The majority of Americans have come to believe that political arrangements should be voluntary. Thus, the fact that some people want to break away is no cause for war.

That was not the view in 1861, however."

Defaults, Debt Ceilings and the 14th Amendment | Robert A. Levy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Defaults, Debt Ceilings and the 14th Amendment | Robert A. Levy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Congress and the president would be compelled either to reduce spending, raise taxes, sell the Treasury's mortgage-backed securities ($100 billion) or gold ($389 billion), delay principal and interest on debt held by the Federal Reserve (16% of total debt) or simply revalue the Treasury's gold certificates at the current market price (a gain of $378 billion) by amending the Par Value Modification Act. The choices to avoid default are numerous, notwithstanding a debt ceiling."

Oregon's Verdict on Medicaid | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary

Oregon's Verdict on Medicaid | Michael F. Cannon | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Americans may be surprised to learn that little solid evidence exists to support the claim that expanding health insurance will improve the health and financial security of the uninsure"

"Medicaid coverage led to higher medical consumption"

"medical consumption was no higher in the first half of the year, suggesting there was no 'pent-up demand' for medical care"

"no discernible difference in ER use between Medicaid enrollees and the control group."

"The likelihood of having out-of-pocket medical expenses fell from 56 percent to 36 percent, while the likelihood of having to borrow money or skip paying other bills to pay for medical care fell from 36 percent to 21 percent. Enrollees' likelihood of having any type of unpaid bill sent to collection fell from 50 percent to 45 percent."

"no evidence that Medicare (which covers a much older and sicker population) saved any lives even ten years after its introduction."

"the likelihood of screening positive for depression fell from 33 percent to 25 percent, and the share reporting their health to be good or better rose from 55 percent to 68 percent. However, two-thirds of the improvement in self-reported health occurred almost immediately after enrollment, before any increases in medical consumption."

"despite being eligible for Medicaid, 13 percent of the control group had private health insurance — suggesting that on some dimension, Medicaid's eligibility rules are already too broad."

"For a century, the Left has advocated universal health insurance despite not knowing what benefits it might bring. In 2010, Congress and President Obama vastly expanded Medicaid without waiting for the results of the one study that might tell them what taxpayers would get in return for their half a trillion dollars. As the law's supporters seek to cajole doctors into practicing evidence-based medicine, it is no small irony that they themselves dove head-first into evidence-free policymaking."