Rob Reid wrote a great explanation of the horrible risk taken during the Manhattan Project, when American nuclear scientists took a chance estimated at one-in-three million that the first atomic test would create a chain reaction that would ignite the…
I’m a pragmatic pacifist who wishes to minimize violence and I accept that some violence might be necessary to accomplish this. Of course, everyone says that they want to minimize violence, so how is a pacifist like me any different?…
Every so often I get requests to sign a petition supporting various business interests. The petitions are promoted by fly-by-night “organizations” that are fronts for lobbyists like EconomistLetter.com. Lately I’ve been getting emails from ConcernedEconomists.org that are worried about the pharmaceutical industry’s…
A classic story of price discrimination that textbooks tell is the appliance ‘dent and scratch’ sale in which an appliance store will deliberately create cosmetic damage on some of their washers and refrigerators so that they can sell them at…
Alia Wong at The Atlantic reports about a new Harvard study that surveyed roughly 500 economics Ph.D. candidates at eight elite universities, and found that 18 percent of them experienced moderate or severe symptoms of depression and anxiety. That’s more than…
Emily Stewart at Vox.com made a mistake about monopoly power in America. She wrote that Amazon… could eventually become so big that it can control what shipping companies such as FedEx and UPS charge it, and, in areas where it becomes…
How about these prices for food at NFL games: “$35 for a (large) cocktail? $19 for cheese curds? $18 for essentially a Doritos taco?” Although it is tempting to blame stadium owners for the high prices and bad quality, the…
