Piggybacking on economist David Henderson’s fun-with-a-point post, “I Was a Chinese Laborer,” about rules designed to limit how much overtime Chinese workers are allowed at Apple’s and other companies’ factories. The goal is “to bring its factories within China’s legal limits of 40 hours of work per week and 36 hours maximum overtime per month […]
I too was an exploited worker Read More »
The US government’s debt: “102,984 for every person living in the U.S.”* How’s that for secular Original Sin? Suppose you’re an infant just born into this world. You haven’t done anything yet — but you’ve inherited the financial misdeeds of earlier generations and will spend the rest of your life paying for them. * Source:
Government debt as secular original sin Read More »
From the still-hilarious files. Changing times. Rembrandt van Rijn (1653) and Michael Crawford (1992).
Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, Then and Now Read More »
I’m a fan of Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz’s From Poverty to Prosperity: Intangible Assets, Hidden Liabilities and the Lasting Triumph over Scarcity. I wrote about it here. It’s about Economics 2.0, as they call it, one key feature of which is putting the entrepreneur front and center — in contrast to much of traditional
Entrepreneur and Un-entrepreneur characteristics Read More »
Under the northwest leg of the Eiffel Tower tower is a bust of engineer Gustave Eiffel. Portraits of outstanding individuals are usually not made until they are old or even from memory after they are dead. As a result, those of us in later generations have a harder time grasping how those individuals were in
Gustave Eiffel and portrayals of great humans Read More »
From Peter Gay’s brief biography, about the terrible brevity of life in Mozart’s time. Wolfgang Mozart “was born in Salzburg on January 27, 1756, the seventh and last child of Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart. Of his siblings, five died in infancy, and only one sister, four years his elder, survived … . This appalling
Appalling infant mortality rates, then and now Read More »
One regularly reads or hears condemnations of the power of business corporations in the modern world. So let’s think about the nature of power. Witness Warren Buffett. Buffett is currently the sixth richest man in the world and head of the powerhouse Berkshire Hathaway corporation. I’m not a fan of his political or economic views,
Anecdote: Warren Buffett and the power of corporations Read More »
Update: Thanks to sponsor generosity, some travel stipends for students now available. A five-day seminar this summer; June 24-28 at the University of Illinois, Springfield, on the philosophy originated by Ayn Rand. Join professors William Kline (Business), Carrie-Ann Biondi (Philosophy), Richard Salsman (Politics and Economics), and me (Philosophy). We will give three talks each and
Week-long seminar on Ayn Rand & Objectivism, at University of Illinois, Springfield Read More »