Walmart and Discrimination - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily

Walmart and Discrimination - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Daily: "Most Americans don't have a particular preference for having a man versus a woman ring up their groceries at Walmart, and so they take claims of sexual discrimination seriously. But Americans on net do have a preference to be greeted at the door of a restaurant by a young, pretty woman, and that's why restaurants cater to that preference. This also explains why movie producers are willing to pay millions of dollars to gorgeous stars, even though less attractive thespians could give 'the same' performance for much less money."

"If analyzed, the reason for this different intuition would boil down to the fact that hiring pretty women as hostesses actually is a 'business decision' catering to customer preferences, whereas hiring pretty women as midlevel executive assistants is a 'personal decision' catering to the manager's preferences. The first practice makes the company more money, while the second squanders it."

"the free market automatically punishes 'bad' discrimination. Unlike under government laws, here there is no chance of a guilty party escaping his or her punishment — and the punishment itself is exactly proportional to the severity of the 'offense.'"

"f it really were true that hundreds of thousands of women were being systematically underpaid by Walmart, then Target and other stores could reap an enormous advantage by offering slight pay raises and inducing them all to quit."

Estonia, the Little Country That Could | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

Estonia, the Little Country That Could | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: "By 1987, it is estimated that the Finns were seven times richer per capita than the Estonians. But as a result of undertaking the most radical free-market reforms of any of the transition countries, the Estonians have been gaining on their Finnish neighbors, who also have continued to do well, and now have about two-thirds of the per capita income of the average Finn."

The Isolationist Charge: The Last Refuge of the Scoundrel | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Isolationist Charge: The Last Refuge of the Scoundrel | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "McCain's ignorance is striking. He claimed that U.S. intervention stopped a slaughter in the city of Benghazi, even though Libya's Moammar Qadhafi had not committed mass killings in the other cities which he recaptured. And Qadhafi aimed his florid rhetoric at rebel fighters, not civilians."

Welfare before the Welfare State - Joshua Fulton - Mises Daily

Welfare before the Welfare State - Joshua Fulton - Mises Daily: "Mutual aid was particularly popular among the poor and the working class. For instance, in New York City in 1909 40 percent of families earning less than $1,000 a year, little more than the 'living wage,' had members who were in mutual-aid societies.[2] Ethnicity, however, was an even greater predictor of mutual-aid membership than income. The 'new immigrants,' such as the Germans, Bohemians, and Russians, many of whom were Jews, participated in mutual-aid societies at approximately twice the rate of native whites and six times the rate of the Irish.[3] This may have been due to new immigrants' need for an enhanced social safety net.

By the 1920s, at least one out of every three males was a member of a mutual-aid society.[4] Members of societies carried over $9 billion worth of life insurance by 1920. During the same period, 'lodges dominated the field of health insurance.'[5] Numerous lodges offered unemployment benefits. Some black fraternal lodges, taking note of the sporadic nature of African-American employment at the time, allowed members to receive unemployment benefits even if they were up to six months behind in dues.[6]"

China's Hard-Money History - Dan O'Connor - Mises Daily

China's Hard-Money History - Dan O'Connor - Mises Daily: "Trade and commerce between the Chinese and the people of Europe was very minimal until the 1600s. But despite being relatively isolated from each other, the people of these two far-off lands all adopted identical ways for conducting commerce — they used gold and silver as the preferred medium of exchange. Most importantly, gold and silver did not circulate throughout China by edict of the emperor or some central authority. The Chinese chose gold as their money because gold and silver have moneyish characteristics."

Peer Review and "Pal Review" in Climate Science | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary

Peer Review and "Pal Review" in Climate Science | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary: "What about if my professional advancement is dependent upon climate change monies (which applies to just about every academic or government climatologist)? I'm liable to really like a paper that says this is a horrible and important problem, and likely to rail against an author who says it's probably a bit overblown. May God have mercy on any manuscript that mentions the rather large elephant in the room, which is that we probably can't do much about it anyway."

Never Say Retire by Gary North

Never Say Retire by Gary North: "With half of Americans retiring early, thereby cutting their lifetime Social Security payments, we are building up an army of voters who are heavily dependent on government money to survive. They will find that their income does not allow them to live in anything like the comfort they had imagined. They did not save enough money. Of those few who did save more than 10% of their disposable income, year after year, the last decade has eroded their capital."

The Medical Marketplace, Free and Unfree - Andrew Foy, MD - Mises Daily

The Medical Marketplace, Free and Unfree - Andrew Foy, MD - Mises Daily: "The results showed that while spending increased as benefit coverage increased, health status and health outcomes did not improve. There was very little evidence to demonstrate that having a high level of benefit coverage improved population health on average.[3] The RAND Health Insurance Experiment debunks the idea that patients are not capable of being prudent consumers of medical goods and services."

Debt-Limit Deal: Will the Cuts Be Phony? | Chris Edwards | Cato Institute: Commentary

Debt-Limit Deal: Will the Cuts Be Phony? | Chris Edwards | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Looking at Congressional Budget Office projections, it is fairly easy to come up with $2 trillion in 'savings' without actually cutting anything."

"To construct the baseline, the CBO takes current spending and increases it over time by inflation. But nobody expects war spending to continue rising like that. Rather, spending is supposed to fall in coming years as troops are withdrawn."

"A deal that simply counts projected future savings against inflated discretionary baselines would be a fiscal fraud."

First-term Assembly Republicans drove history-making changes - JSOnline

First-term Assembly Republicans drove history-making changes - JSOnline: "'You had freshmen standing up that are in swing districts that said, 'You know what? I didn't come down here to be re-elected again. I came down here to set the state right, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take this vote; I know it's probably not the easiest politically for me,' ' Fitzgerald said, adding:

'That was the beauty - the political courage - of it, that these folks were like, 'I'll take this vote and, if I don't come back, I can look myself in the mirror and say, 'That's what I went down there to do and that's what I think the people sent me there to do.' '"