Sir Barken Hyena writes:
This is a post that could go on forever, but I just want to highlight a certain trend I’m seeing: economists arguing like complete retards. I’m talking to you, Bryan Caplan, but you’ve got lots of company.
The argument is over why Americans give so little as charity to the Federal government. Theories are proposed: they’re selfish, or they think it’ll be wasted. It’s all very theoretical and technical. But this point is never made:
Because the government already forcibly takes a third of our incomes. Duh.
There, see how easy that is? It’s called thinking like a normal human who lives in the actual world, instead of being an autistic stuck in an aquarium of your own making.
To be fair, Caplan does have some interesting things to say, but jeez man, get a grip already.
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
Don’t get me started. “Economists” are philosophers without portfolio, hired brains for the fiat money class. I don’t think Von Mises thought of himself as an “economist”, but as a philosopher of the free market. He was constantly challenging these socialist charlatans to reveal how their systems could possibly engage in realistic price discovery. Naturally, they could never answer that simple question.
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Bryan Caplan’s a case, isn’t he? Very bright, but he seldom seems to connect with life as most people actually live it. Doesn’t even seem interested in common experience, as far as I can tell. In any case, I definitely don’t want to live in the U.S. that he envisions.
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>>Bryan Caplan’s a case, isn’t he? Very bright, but he seldom seems to connect with life as most people actually live it.
By his own admission, he’s spent his entire life in academia. An example of how too much school rots the brain.
That said, I’m really looking forward to his book on the signaling model of education.
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Steve Landsburg is another case. His book “More Sex is Safer Sex” posits the theory that if guys who use condoms had a lot more sex there’d be less venereal disease about, by ratio. He spends some time trying to figure out why these safe-sex practicing knights don’t have more sex. A real head-scratcher, that one! He then explores various incentive schemes that might get them more interested in copulating. As if a blood stream of 90% testosterone isn’t an incentive. It was really bizarre.
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Landsburg’s a great comparison. IQ points to spare, but a complete idiot where the whole “being human” thing goes.
LINK
What is it with these guys? Do they even belong here on Earth?
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I haven’t read this entire piece, but the bullet-point list up near the top of it is a great critique of conventional economics.
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