by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. The university admissions scandal “Operation Varsity Blues” is interesting on many levels: rich people working the system; corruption and bribery in institutions of higher learning; elite, liberal universities sullied by scandal and greed. But as an economist, the episode brings other comparisons to mind. First, consider how the scandal resembles both “legacy admissions” and “affirmative action” — two other strange aspects of university admissions. In all of these cases, students are…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. A useful way to help students understand economic arrangements is to place the phrases “completely free market” and “perfect command systems” at the end of a line and assign places to countries on the line. A completely free market, a polar end of the continuum, has no regulation governing private property and voluntary exchanges; a perfect command system has no private property and no voluntary exchange system. Neither endpoint would have…

by Mark Franke “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” We’ve all seen a sign like this posted in workplaces, usually places where the boss is not likely to venture. It is part dark humor and part commentary on the disconnect between the elites and the hoi polloi. But this column is not about management theory but about practical politics, about the political elites versus the political hoi polloi. The governor of our neighboring state…

by Leo Morris Would you like to see a self-professed strongly committed Christian in the White House? Which one? Democratic South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg or Republican Vice President Mike Pence? Both are quite candid about their religious faith, so we may presume it informs their political sensibilities, but the synthesis takes them in very different directions. Pence, “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order,” is a member of what the mainstream…

by Craig Ladwig When a business looks to relocate in your community, the economic-development types will make its owners aware of favors that the political establishment can bestow. These will represent fixed or political capital — tax-increment financing, rebates, zoning exceptions, access to the mayor’s office, an inside track to municipal contracts, that sort of thing. But a willingness to spend someone else’s money on strategies of legal corruption is hardly in demand. Everybody does…

by T. Norman Van Cott, Ph.D. There are two primary reasons for economists’ opposition to tariffs. First, by raising U.S. prices of imports, tariffs encourage high-cost domestic production of import substitutes. This production would be uneconomic in the tariffs’ absence. Cost measures what people sacrifice to obtain a particular objective, so substituting higher cost domestic production for lower cost imports means more of other things are given up to get those items. Giving up more…

by Mark Franke “I have seen the future, and it works!” wrote the journalist Lincoln Steffens after visiting the Soviet Union in 1919. Except that it didn’t. Why bring this up now, nearly 30 years after the fall of the USSR and its communist- totalitarian system of repression and deprivation? Because a new generation of political rock stars have been anointed by a slavering press, rock stars who gush on about how socialism is what…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. Andrew Yang is one of many Democratic candidates for U.S. President in 2020. Unlike most of his competitors, Yang is intelligent and sounds like a policy wonk. He’s eloquent and brims with joy. He’s thoughtful about policy and worried about both people and society. But Yang is a mess on many issues, so why write about him? We should applaud candidates who talk about public policy in a thoughtful way. In…

by Leo Morris Let’s cut to the chase on our current relapse into anti-Electoral College fever. No matter what high-minded reasons partisans espouse, many also all have selfish motivations for their positions. A great number of Electoral College opponents are liberals and/or Democrats who believe an end to the current system will ensure the election of liberals and/or Democrats to the presidency forever and ever. A great number of Electoral College supporters are conservatives and/or…

“Liberalism is piecemeal socialism, and socialism always attacks three institutions: religion, family and property. Religion, because it offers a rival authority to the State; family, because it means a rival loyalty to the State; property, because it means independence to the State.” — Joe Sobran PETER BUTTIGIEG’S PROMOTION of socialist policies in his presidential campaign begins by dismissing the concerns of an older generation, one more familiar with the past failures — nay, disasters —…