Newmark's Door

By Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute: calm, reasonable, but scary.

If this keeps up, some day--maybe soon--our time will run out.

The US federal budget is haemorrhaging money. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office calculates that in the first seven months of the 2023 fiscal year, underlying government revenues are down 10 per cent with spending up 12 per cent. This leaves the federal budget deficit more than three times larger than in the same months of the 2022 fiscal year.

"As the business world widely recognizes, incumbent/startup acquisitions efficiently combine a startup’s innovation excellence with an incumbent’s scale, scope and access to capital. This potent synthesis can accelerate the process of converting an innovation into a viable product for market release. Unfounded regulatory interventions based on hypothetical models of market failure harm consumers and startups by obstructing the path to commercialization."

Mike Munger:

Seven years ago, I pointed out a problem with the “market failure” justification for state action against markets. This objection has become more, not less, important with the passage of time. So I’m going to reprise the argument, and make it clear why this problem should be one of the central features of public policy.

The problem is this: every flaw in consumers is worse in voters.

I've heard it said that to be an economist you must recognize the power of incentives. But to be a good economist you must anticipate how clever people will game the incentives they are given:

My son’s school was having issues with messy bathrooms so every month they reward the boys or girls with ice cream depending on whose bathrooms are cleaner and according to my son it’s become a prank war where they just fuck up each other’s bathroom.

Well, I don't think it will help.

One business owner recently told me that the millionaires’ tax was a significant reason he made Florida his primary residence last year. He, like Calvo-Bacci and many others, was already antsy about the state’s high estate and business taxes as well as the rising cost of living, driving him toward friendlier pastures. Meanwhile, wealth advisers and business consultants throughout the state say that many of their clients are looking seriously into moving beyond Massachusetts’ borders. Some, they say, will definitely move, while others have commissioned studies in preparation to flee in a few years when current leases or other obligations run out. 

If the rise in meat prices was the result of awful collusion--I don't concede for a moment that it was--the collusion sure didn't seem to last long. (Wall Street Journal; may be gated if you're not a subscriber and visit a lot.)

Mike Munger states that they are thought-provoking for his Duke undergrads. (And maybe even for some of the Duke faculty.)

Answer: not good. Could well be fine if you don't want to think much about your investments (I don't make my own clothes, though ignoring time costs, it would be cheaper.) Just don't expect to make above-normal returns.

NY Post article on a study that tries to improve on the literature by replacing a dummy independent variable for subsidy or no subsidy with data on the actual amounts of the subsidies.