Under new management
Above: A Chinese propaganda poster from 1986. No wonder Communism has appealed to so many. I would’ve called this The Communists party, but its painter named it Youthful dance steps. Oh well.
Say what you want about China’s Communist leaders, but they get results, and they get them quickly. From the latest …
Hong Kong: The Last Free City on Earth
We’d all do well to occasionally remember what exactly we mean by the word ”freedom”.
I thought about that as I read through the Heritage Foundation’s Freedom Index for 2007, a list which rates each of 161 countries in the world according to that country’s level of economic freedom – that is, the level of control …
Bubbles: They Make You Grow
Bubbles are good for you. Not the bubbles kids play with or the bubbles in your bubble bath, but the bigger, flashier kind. You know — the tech bubble, the housing bubble, etc. At least, that’s what Daniel Gross says.
Well, the conventional wisdom holds that bubbles are bad. Economists don’t like them because …
Manufacturing Crisis
So, has America been throwing our future away the past several decades? Have we been exporting all of our manufacturing capability? Are we at the mercy of China, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia?
No.
U.S. manufacturing output reached its all time high in 2006. U.S. manufacturing revenue reached its all time high in 2006. U.S. manufacturing profits …
Eat Global, Not Local
Madison family eats only items made within 100 miles of their home
A Madison family is shunning the SUV diet and thriving on the 100-mile diet.
Although wistful for citrus, soy sauce and better bread flour, Jen and Scott Lynch and their daughter, Evie, pledged to stick to this diet for …
The Miracle of Specialization
One of the great things about the division of labor — having each person do one job and do it well — is the lengths to which complete strangers will go to make each others’ lives better.
Take, for example, road signs. We drive by thousands of them each year. Have you ever thought about what …
Living On the Excess
America is so rich that it’s possible to make a living off of our trash. (You say wasteful, I say rich. It boils down to the same thing.) Madison’s Capital Times published an article about the burgeoning art of dumpster diving.
So much is discarded, in fact, that it is possible to live almost …
Appreciating Luxuries
It’s easy to forget exactly how rich we are. Two days ago, as I was driving to work, I saw a van with a bumper stick. The van belonged to a typical Madison parent, one with school-age children. The bumper sticker stridently proclaimed ”The Arts Are Not a Luxury!” Obviously, at some point, this parent …
Capitalistic Orgy — Car Repair Edition
I just wanted to write about how rich I am. Right now, Toyota’s engineers are giving my car it’s 30,000 mile checkup. They’ll rotate my tires, change my oil, check all of my filters and fluids, etc. While they do that, I’m sitting in air-conditioned comfort. I have my laptop. Thanks to Toyota’s ”free” Wi-Fi …
We're Richer Than We've Ever Been Before
We’re richer than we’ve ever been before. Don’t believe me? Don Boudreaux takes a walk through a 1975 Sears catalog:
Other than the style differences, the fact most noticeable from the contents of this catalog’s 1,491 pages is what the catalog doesn’t contain. The Sears customer in 1975 found no CD players for …