The Moral Imperative of the Market - Friedrich A. Hayek - Mises Daily

The Moral Imperative of the Market - Friedrich A. Hayek - Mises Daily: "Thus the whole economic order rested on the fact that by using prices as a guide, or as signals, we were led to serve the demands and enlist the powers and capacities of people of whom we knew nothing."

"the basic foundation of our civilization and our wealth is a system of signals which informs us, however imperfectly, of the effects of millions of events which occur in the world, to which we have to adapt ourselves and about which we may have no direct information."

"If it is true that prices are signals which enable us to adapt our activities to unknown events and demands, it is evidently nonsense to believe that we can control prices. You cannot improve a signal if you do not know what it signals."

"If prices are to serve as an effective guide to what people ought to do, you cannot reward people for what are or were their good intentions. You must allow prices to be determined so as to tell people where they can make the best contribution to the rest of society — and unfortunately the capacity of making good contributions to one's fellows is not distributed according to any principles of justice."

"the world's population has grown to a size where it can be fed only by adhering to a market system"

The Science Behind College-Football Helmet Stickers | Playbook

The Science Behind College-Football Helmet Stickers | Playbook: "The researchers found that when the mug was the prize, the men in the group — but not the women — fought harder to win, so they more readily threw in all their cash during the game, vying for the highest possible ratings from their teammates. And when competing for the mug, the males cooperated more with each other, instead of plotting and scheming against the rest of the group.

Pan thinks the findings show that the males viewed the mug as a displayable trophy to the rest of the group, and their desire to win the affection of their peers spurred them to shift their behavior away from self-interest toward a strategy that was better aligned for team success."

The Weak Dollar Problem | Steve H. Hanke | Cato Institute: Commentary

The Weak Dollar Problem | Steve H. Hanke | Cato Institute: Commentary: "For each 1% decline in the dollar against the euro, there was on average a 0.5% increase in the price of oil. The biggest single contributor to oil price increases in recent months is not located in Libya, but at the headquarters of the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C."

Obama's Soak-the-Rich Tax Hikes Won't Work | Alan Reynolds | Cato Institute: Commentary

Obama's Soak-the-Rich Tax Hikes Won't Work | Alan Reynolds | Cato Institute: Commentary: "The individual income tax brought in 7.8% of GDP from 1952 to 1979 when the top tax rate ranged from 70% to 92%, 8% of GDP from 1993 to 1996 when the top tax rate was 39.6%, and 8.1% from 1988 to 1990 when the highest individual income tax rate was 28%. Mr. Obama's hope that raising only the highest tax rates could keep individual tax receipts well above 9% of GDP has been repeatedly tested for more than six decades. It has always failed."

In Japan, Let's Stop Sweating the Small (Nuclear) Stuff | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary

In Japan, Let's Stop Sweating the Small (Nuclear) Stuff | Patrick J. Michaels | Cato Institute: Commentary: "This is the familiar story of misplaced concern about tiny risks while blithely ignoring other major ones. People who have irrational fears of small amounts of ionizing radiation have no problem crossing a busy street in the city.

Others are terrified by flying and drive instead, even though there were nearly 34,000 automotive fatalities in 2009 in the U.S., compared with 50 on scheduled planes.

People stay up at night worrying about the 5% increase in sunburn-causing radiation as a result of stratospheric ozone depletion, and the next morning go to the beach and expose 95% of their skin to the same rays."

A Pyrrhic Victory | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

A Pyrrhic Victory | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Worse, contrary to assurances by the Republican leadership, the budget agreement actually increases the budget baseline. While that sounds like the sort of accounting-speak that makes eyes glaze over, it means that next year's budgeting process will start with an automatic assumption of higher spending, making it more difficult to cut spending in the 2012 budget.

From the negotiating brinkmanship, Republican leaders made it clear that they were more concerned with avoiding a government shutdown than in making real spending cuts. That's exactly what they got."

The Myth of Japan's Lost Decades - Kel Kelly - Mises Daily

The Myth of Japan's Lost Decades - Kel Kelly - Mises Daily: "The misleading measurement of growth in question is GDP growth, because it is practically the sole indicator used by professionals to assess economic output. The problem is that GDP is in fact not a measure of real, physical production of goods and services, as it is intended to be. It is primarily a measure of inflation, which it is not intended to be."

"prices can rise overall throughout an economy only if the quantity of money in the economy increases faster than the quantity of goods and services."

Not Just the Size of the Debt | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

Not Just the Size of the Debt | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In 2008, the Congressional Budget Office reported that in order to simply pay for spending that was locked in at that time, we would have to raise both the corporate tax rate and the top individual tax rate from their current level of 35 percent to 88 percent, raise the 25 percent tax rate for middle-income workers to 63 percent, and raise the 10 percent rate for low-income Americans to 25 percent. That was before Obamacare and the post-2008 spending binge."

Taxing the rich won't fix the problem.

Florida's Vocational Deregulation | Robert A. Levy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Florida's Vocational Deregulation | Robert A. Levy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Government has no business enacting arbitrary regulations to protect the profits of a closed fraternity of privileged companies — especially when the effect is higher prices, narrower choices, and fewer new firms started by emergent entrepreneurs."

Campaign For Liberty — Nullifying the Drug War �� by Jacob Hornberger

Campaign For Liberty — Nullifying the Drug War by Jacob Hornberger: "After both sides have rested in a civil suit, the judge has the power to enter what is called an 'instructed verdict.'He does that if there are no facts in dispute. Since there is nothing for the jury to determine, given that both sides agree on the facts, the judge can dismiss the jury and enter judgment for the side he believes should prevail on the law.

Not so, however, with a criminal case. Even if all the facts are agreed upon -- even if the defendant openly confesses on the witness stand to having committed the offense -- the judge lacks the power to dismiss the jury and summarily enter judgment for the state. The judge must nonetheless send the case to the jury because the jury is the final judge of not only the facts but also the law. It has the power to acquit the defendant even if the evidence conclusively establishes that the defendant has committed the offense."