Mungowit's End

I created a YouTube channel, with short videos based on some of my essays on economics.

Fun to make, and I'm learning a lot about videos, to help me teach students how to do "video papers," a much more useful application of their time than writing academic papers.

So far:

Everybody Loves Mikey

I'll Stick with These

They Clapped

The Mancgere

More every week, on Friday mornings!

Q&A

A snippet from the Q&A portion of the "Cato Book Forum" in July.

In which I come out as a Buchananite...

Quantitative Easing

The nice thing is that this raises questions about what "pretend money" would be.




All money is pretend money.

But P-Kroog thinks we need more.  A lot more.

Recycling

How mighty is Dan Benjamin?  Very, very mighty.

MTSU

I gave a lecture at Middle Tennessee State, in honor of my hero James Buchanan.  They did a nice job filminig it.  And....here it is!

Voters Are Ignorant, Not Dumb

The lovely Dr. Diana Thomas makes a nice point.  Voters aren't ignorant because they are dumb.  In fact, voters are ignorant because they are SMART.

Raising the question of whether, as Angus has suggested, the ethical choice is actually NOT to vote, especially if you are uninformed.  Think how great it would be if anyone who knew s/he didn't know much decided, "The moral choice is to stay home!"  What a wonderful world that would be!

How to make $$$ selling drugs!

With thanks to Angry Alex, who passes on this gem pointed out by Radley Balko.

On the other hand....drugs in Russia.  Pretty bad, depressing story.  I guess in (ex)Soviet Russia, drugs do YOU.

Lagniappe:  Imagine what Michael Phelps could have accomplished if he had not done those bowls!

and that's the reason I'm a Bullets fan!

Hat tip to Zach M.

November 5th

In honor of Guy's day, the speech from V for Vendetta.

Unfair, but funny

Nothing fair about this, since the various physical and political miscues are unrelated. But it is both funny and effective...

(Nod to the Blonde)

Donald Duck and Glenn Beck

Not sure what to think of this. But it is amusing...

Bankers v. Consultants

I'm not sure this is "good," but I laughed a lot. Lot's of inside jokes, you have to listen four or times to get them.

My prediction: Frequent commenter BR will give this two thumbs up.

Matt Ridley: When Ideas Pitch Woo

The Grand Game

Discuss.

I think there are some silly mistakes here. But there are also some insights. And the animation is tremendous.

However, all the actual insights are Public Choice insights. Marx was, after all, the first public choice theorist. The basic Marxist syllogism is this: 1. If government is powerful... 2. Then in a democracy that government will be dominated by business interests. 3. Therefore, get rid of private business.

The "if" part (1) and the "then" part (2) are both substantially correct, actually. But the "therefore" part is dumb. The correct "therefore" is:

Therefore, get rid of powerful government, which mostly restrains competition. Competition won't be perfect, and in fact there will be problems like those in 2008-9. But the problems will be much smaller, and of shorter duration, without the meddling of powerful and self-interested government agencies.

(Nod to Kindred, from here)

Democracy and the Deliberative Conceit

Mark Pennington, "Democracy and the Deliberative Conceit." (A little over an hour...)

Mark Pennington - "Democracy and the Deliberative Conceit" from oxford libertarian on Vimeo.

From Kosmos.