Archive for Mark Skousen
The Economics of Ecology: Angry Planet or Beautiful World?
"The bright promise of a new millennium is now clouded by unprecedented threats to humanity’s future."
-WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE, 20001
"We know that the environment is not in good shape. . . . My claim is that things are improving."
-BJØRN LOMBORG2
Bjørn Lomborg is a Danish professor of statistics who was an environmental activist and member of Greenpeace for [...]
The Four Sources of Happiness: Is Money One of Them?
"I’m tired of Love: I’m still more tired of Rhyme.
But Money gives me pleasure all the time."
-Hilaire Belloc
I came across a very interesting book the other day called Happiness and Economics: How the Economy and Institutions Affect Human Well-Being by Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer. It’s a technical book, with lots of graphs and [...]
1Aug2002 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedFrom The Presidents Desk ~ A Painless Way to Triple Your Savings
“The human mind is charming in its unreasonableness, its inveterate prejudices, and its waywardness and unpredictability.”
—LIN YUTANG1
“Behavioral” finance is the hot new field in the rapidly growing “imperial” science of economics. Consider the titles of recent books on the subject: Irrational Exuberance by Robert Shiller of Yale University, who correctly warned investors that the bull [...]
From The Presidents Desk – The Right to Be Left Alone
“The makers of the Constitution conferred the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by all civilized men—the right to be let alone.”
-Justice Louis D. Brandeis
According to Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, one of the “repeated injuries and usurpations” committed against the American people by the King of England was the [...]
From The President’s Desk ~ Japan and the Macroeconomic Debate
"Economics is a very dangerous science"
-JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES1
"Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man."
-HENRY HAZLITT2
There is no better example of today’s heated debate over macroeconomics than Japan. What policy should this nation-economically the second largest in the world-adopt to start growing again after a decade of sluggish performance?
It [...]
From The President’s Desk ~ Poverty and Wealth: India Versus Hong Kong
"The government of India regulates nearly everything, so there’s very little progress; whereas in Hong Kong the government keeps its hands off . . . and the standard of living has multiplied."
-JOHN TEMPLETON1
The mutual fund magnate John Templeton traveled around the world during the 1930s, noting in particular the extreme poverty in two Asian [...]
Leisure, The Basis of Culture
“How inscrutable is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play!” —Lin Yutang1
Ever since moving to the Bahamas in 1984, I have been intrigued by the idea of leisure—shedding the workaholic rat race to be “free and easy” and “letting oneself [...]
Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men Through Capitalism and Freedom!
“A great multitude of religious sects . . . might in time [become] free of every mixture of absurdity, imposture, of fanaticism.” —Adam Smith1
Mark Skousen is president of FEE and editor of his own Web site, www.mskousen.com.
In this time of thanksgiving and holiday cheer, we here at the Foundation for Economic Education wish [...]
One Capitalists Advice: Attract Attention!
“Individualism, private property, the law of accumulation of wealth, and the law of competition . . . are the highest result of human experience, the soil in which society, so far, has produced the best fruit.” —Andrew Carnegie 1
Mark Skousen is president of FEE. His Web site is www.mskousen.com.
A few days after my [...]
FEEs Goal: From Candlestick to Lighthouse
Mark Skousen is president of the Foundation for Economic Education.
“Those of us interested in an improved perception, awareness, consciousness of the freedom philosophy on the part of others have only to increase our own candle power.” — Leonard E. Read 1
Becoming the president of the Foundation for Economic Education fulfills a [...]
Economics on Trial: I Like Hayek
Who should take the place of Keynes to lead economics into the 21st century? Should it be the economics of Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Joseph Schumpeter, or F. A. Hayek? While all four have much to offer, I favor Hayek. I am not alone.
1Sep2001 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedEconomics on Trial ~ Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?
Mark Skousen (www.mskousen.com ; mskousen@aol.com) is an economist at Rollins College, Department of Economics, Winter Park, FL 32789, a Forbes columnist, and editor of Forecasts & Strategies. His new book, The Making of Modern Economics, is available from Laissez Faire Books, 800-326-0996.
“Governments are generally reluctant to admit mistakes and to change mistaken policies until [...]
Where Are the Best Schools in Austrian Economics?
Here in the United States most colleges and universities have a goodly number of “neoclassical” economists with a free-market bent. (There are a number of “free market” colleges and universities in Latin America, Europe, and Asia, a topic I shall pursue in a future column.) The American schools include the University of Virginia; the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); Florida State University; and the University of Chicago.
1Jul2001 | Mark Skousen | 3 comments | ContinuedPulling Down the Keynesian Cross
In his third and final volume on John Maynard Keynes, Robert Skidelsky comes to the shocking conclusion that the Keynesian revolution was temporary, that Keynes’s General Theory was really only a “special” case, and that “free market liberalism” has ultimately triumphed. This is all the more amazing given that Lord Skidelsky has spent the past 20 years of his professional career studying Keynes and resides in Keynes’s old estate, Tilton House. Few scholars would have the guts to repudiate the theory of the man they adore.
1Jun2001 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedIt All Started with Adam
Adam Smith, that is. Having just completed writing a history of economics,[1] I have concluded that, despite the protestations of Murray Rothbard and other detractors, the eighteenth-century moral philosopher and celebrated author of The Wealth of Nations deserves to be named the founding father of modern economics.
1May2001 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedBeyond GDP: A Breakthrough in National Income Accounting
“It is apparent that a large part of a country’s total production serves for the production of capital goods and not for the production of consumer goods, and that the production of capital goods must itself become a specialized branch of manufacturing.”
—Wilhelm Röpke1
Mark Skousen (www.mskousen.com; mskousen@aol.com) is an economist at Rollins College, Department of Economics, [...]
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The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy–If We Let it Happen
By Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter J. Tanous
