Almost Classical

What you study and where you study it matters, especially if you're going to be sinking into debt while completing a degree. There has been some research that illustrates this: College ROI: What We Found - http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-09/college-roi-what-we-found Center on Education and the Workforce - http://cew.georgetown.edu/collegepayoff/ Wall St. Journal PayScale Database - http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degrees_that_Pay_you_Back-sort.html First, the notion that college graduates have a comparatively low unemployment or underemployment rate is misleading. The table below shows that "low" unemployment isn't so low among recent graduates, though people over 30 with college degrees do have lower unemployment than the national average. Second, even those with jobs are often not in jobs that require any college education. As you will read below, as many as 40 percent of graduates in the humanities are working in positions...

The announcement by Mitt Romney that he has chosen Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate means we will have a much needed discussion about the serious economic issues facing this nation. That Paul Krugman and other "progressives" dislike Ryan's budget proposals means the ideas deserve some consideration. You can find many articles describing the "Ryan Budget" and you can read the complete budget document. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-02/politics/house.gop.budget_1_house-gop-budget-medicare-program-voucher-program?_s=PM:POLITICS http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/paul-ryans-multiple-unicorns/ http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/conservative-house-republicans-budget-proposal/ The House Budget Committee posts its documents online: http://budget.house.gov I disagree with some of Ryan's specific proposals, but the key to me is that he admits we are in a financial quagmire that must be addressed. As opposed to the Keynesian ideali...

Following a post on Krugman, probably because that is what he was reading, Nathan posted the following comment: In your description of yourself, you are a classical liberal defined as: "Classical liberalism embodies the original concept of liberalism: a faith in freedom to, not freedom from as a guiding principle." Yet the concept of 'freedom to,' which is positive liberty, is contained nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. The founding fathers of our country were, as far as the definition of classical liberal that I know, mostly classical liberals - hence where we get the term. Yet, the U.S. Constitution is only written in terms of negative liberty, or 'freedom from.' How do you reconcile what appears to be a modern interpretation of classical liberalism from what is most assuredly a different actual and historical definition of the term classical liberal? Check the definition with references from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy before answering ...

Congress has a long history of ceding power to the executive branch. The arguments for this, that administration requires expertise and efficiency, do little to justify the surrender of Constitutional authority. Sadly, this surrender of power to unelected and too often unaccountable bureaucrats shows signs of accelerating. Review the administrative expansion under Presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama and the number of regulations issued are depressing. President Obama has a penchant for the expensive, too. The Daily Caller In his 2012 State of the Union speech, Obama claimed, "I've approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his." Obama's statement was true, but skewed, because he's far outpacing Bush in the production of "economically significant" regulations, each of which imposes costs of more than $100 million per year, said Wayne Crews, a vice president for policy and director of...

Truly depressing… The $12 trillion misunderstanding - The Washington Post : After the CBO issued its report, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a former director of the Office of Management and Budget who is often mentioned as a vice presidential possibility, put out a news release saying that Bush tax cuts for wealthier Americans (generally $250,000 or more for couples and $200,000 for singles) explained only 4 percent of the debt shift. The CRFB checked his math and concluded that he was right. But all of Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts — which, except for benefits for the rich, are now supported by Obama — had a bigger effect, accounting for about 13 percent of the debt swing. Tax cuts for the rich just don't seem to be the problem. What is the problem? Our system, which encourages favors for any and every group of voters. At some point, we will need to cut spending, cut spending, and cut spending. Then, we also need to incrementally return marginal tax rates to traditional levels, sa...

There have been a great many blog posts and columns written since President Obama spoke on July 13, 2012. Many of his defenders have tried to "correct" any confusion about what his words meant, arguing that his statements were misinterpreted by the press and taken out of context by opponents. As Charles Krauthammer rhetorically asks, "Did the state make you great?" http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-did-the-state-make-you-great/2012/07/19/gJQAbZOiwW_story.html The problem for Pres. Obama and his supporters is that his argument is deeply flawed. We do succeed with the help of friends, family, church, non-profit organizations, and, yes, government (generally of the local variety). But, many people have the exact same access to all these various supports… yet some succeed and some fail. Also, a simple point of fact: government is the people, not something outside and above the people. Without successful people paying taxes, there would b...

I've been swamped with some personal matters these last few weeks, but I have been using Twitter to let people know about great articles and blogs. If you want to follow me on Twitter, use @AlmostClassical. The profile is at: https://twitter.com/#!/AlmostClassical Because I'm not blogging as much as I'd like, you might consider adding the following blogs to your reading list: Cafe Hayek: http://cafehayek.com/ Krugman in Wonderland: http://krugman-in-wonderland.blogspot.com/ EconLog: http://econlog.econlib.org/ Megan McArdle, at The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/megan-mcardle/ Most readers likely know my favorite websites, but let me suggest a few anyway: Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/ National Legal and Policy Center: http://nlpc.org/ Once things settle down, I hope to be blogging again. There are certainly enough issues to tackle!