Spending Priorities

The Democrats have a point: if we weren’t spending so much money in Iraq, we’d have a lot more to give to millionaire farmers!

Defying the Laws of Nature

It seems that a lot of governmental units in Minnesota are having trouble hiring senior administrators. The reason is the our clever legislature imposed salary caps for government employees. Guess what? Qualified applicants can find higher paying jobs in the open market. This is what happens with salary caps. The consequence is that many governmental functions are being administered by people who aren’t really qualified. Want to see a real mess? Imagine what would happen if we capped CEO pay!

Of course, it works are both ends of the spectrum. Setting price minimums is as dangerous as setting price maximums. Only a few politicians seem to recognize this, but at least one who did gave a funny speech in Congress.

Prices are a way of communicating information that encourages good decision making. Mess with prices and you distort the information and get less informed decisions. Whether it’s the minimum wage, price supports, salary caps, rent controls, or anti-gouging laws, any distortion of free market pricing leads to  misallocation of resources, making us all a little poorer.

The Care Bear Stare

This is hilarious. Indeed, both the left and the right (as sloppy as those terms are) invoke the Care Bear Stare. Some on the right, indeed, have the Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics. I’ve often thought that many on the left have the Tinkerbell Theory of Governance (if we all wish very very hard, we can make anything happen). Both views ignore basic realities.

Trade Imbalance

This says it all. I guess we’ve got a lot of trade imbalances in this household!

Political Fun

Some political fun is made up, but the real world is even funnier. For sheer political fun, there’s nothing like watching the hilarity of earmark reform.

Gouging

It’s not often that an economics discussion is funny, but this one is. And, in a similar vein, where is the outrage over the greedy price-gouging of farmers? Corn prices have shot up, making the price of lots of food shoot up as well. Why do people get incensed about oil prices and not corn prices?

I Was Grumpy

The WSJ published an amusing article about how parents are going to great lengths to pick ever more unusual (perhaps even bizarre) names for their kids. This prompted a large number of letters to the editor lamenting the practice. One reader suggested that we pass a law requiring that all children be named after one of the Seven Dwarfs and then be allowed to select their own name at 16. Ha! That made my day!

Who Did This To Us?

You don’t find many cartoons that are both economically literate and funny - but here’s one!

Intended Or Not

Who said politics can’t be funny?

Some Things Never Change

You might want to read some amusing comments about inflation and the cost of living from 1957.