Okay, so today is tax day, and it is time for a little pep talk. Our government is going what governments do best, which is being greedy, grasping, voracious, irresponsible, idiotic, and shrewd. The people on the receiving end of this are doing what they do best, which is complain about it without doing anything …
Not Going to Run Out
Now I have outlined in a previous post the fact that incentives are inescapable. It is not whether finite creatures will have them, but which incentives they will have. They will respond to various incentives according to their nature, according to the moral condition of their heart and head. You cannot lure a hungry horse …
Seventy Two of Them
You get more of what you subsidize, and you get less of what you penalize. This is not just a good idea, it’s the law. Different worldviews do not differ over this law — they differ over what is valued and which we therefore want “more of,” and over what may be justly reckoned as …
That Little Head Nod
Just finished a fantastic book on preaching called Why Johnny Can’t Preach. We have to add it to our Greyfriars’ list. It is just superb. Well, mostly superb — he has a few pages on “culture war” that are an odd mixture of astounding insight and barking madness. But that should not be surprising — …
Why Addiction Isn’t Really
“In other words, the establishment of an addiction requires a certain discipline or determination. It is not something that creeps up on your unnoticed or unannounced or all unawares. As a moment’s reflection would suggest to anyone not blinded by self-interest, this fact has important and profound implications for the very concept of treatment, which …
This Era of Obummer
I have mentioned more than once that Christians need to get up to speed on certain economic principles in this era of Obummer. If we do not, then we will discover, as we have been discovering, that he can commit ten economic fallacies at trillion dollar levels while we are all standing around his first …
In Like a Lion, Out Like a Bear
I would take a photo out my window of the snow storm that is pounding us here, but enemies of the gospel of global cooling would think I had photoshopped it. This is a crisis. We clearly need to hand over unlimited power now to government bureaucrats and regulators, not to mention faceless international functionaries, …
Fireproof
Last night Nancy and I watched Fireproof and I wanted to tell you what I thought of it. I figured I needed to give it a look because it is a big evangelical thing and some folks in my congregation had asked me about it. I did not have high expectations going into it for …
Black Markets
He who names, wins. And one of the things that statists, tyrants and bullies like to do, when their regulations have shut virtually every productive thing down, is call the small remaining enclaves of free transactions “black markets.” Black markets, aye. And of course, there is a certain kind of Christian who, when Congress (in …
Real Wealth Hasn’t Gone Anywhere
In these, the golden years of congressional farce, we need periodically to be reminded of a few basic economic realities. Here is just one of them. I will try to offer up others from time to time, but I keep getting distracted by the glorious theatrics all arouund us. It is hard to keep my …