Archive for Mark Skousen
Social Security Reform: Lessons from the Private Sector
“Of all social institutions, business is the only one created for the express purpose of making and managing change . . . . Government is a poor manager.”
—Peter F. Drucker1
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. [...]
Your One-Stop Source for Sound Economics
Walk into any bookstore and you’ll usually find two or three dictionaries of economics. Like any scientific discipline, economics has its own insider terminology, schools of thought, and famous experts. If you haven’t taken a course in economics, you may need a reference guide when a writer uses the term externality, liquidity preference, Laffer curve, or Keynesian economics.
1Feb2001 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Imperial Science
But attitudes are rapidly changing as we enter the 21st century. Economics, no longer dismal, has come a long way toward reinventing itself and expanding into new territories so rapidly that another descriptive phrase is needed.
1Jan2001 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedEconomics on Trial
“There is a strong case for reducing the role of the government budget in providing health services beyond a minimum.”
—Vito Tanzi and Ludger Schuknecht[1]
Mark Skousen (http://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 textbook, Economic Logic, is [...]
Book Review ~ Public Finance and Public Choice: Two Contrasting Visions of the State by James M. Buchanan and Richard A. Musgrave
MIT Press • 1999 • 272 pages • $27.50
So there I was in the late ‘60s, an undergraduate economics major at BYU, a very conservative institution. My introductory textbook was Paul Samuelson’s Economics; my history of economic thought textbook was Robert Heilbroner’s The Worldly Philosophers; and for my public finance course we used [...]
Economics on Trial
“In the excitement over the unfolding of his scientific and technical powers, modern man has built a system of production that ravishes nature and a type of society that mutilates man.”
—E. F. Schumacher[1]
Mark Skousen (http://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 [...]
Economics on Trial
Mark Skousen (http://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 textbook, Economic Logic, is now available from FEE.
“The duty of ‘saving’ became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion.”
—John [...]
Economics on Trial
In today’s robust global economy, the wheat represents genuine prosperity—the new products, technologies, and productivity generated by capitalists and entrepreneurs. It represents real economic growth and when harvested, reflects a true higher standard of living for everyone. Under such conditions, stock prices are likely to rise.
1Sep2000 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedEconomics on Trial
The lighthouse example has been highlighted as a classic public good in Paul Samuelson’s famous textbook since 1964. “Its beam helps everyone in sight. A businessman could not build it for a profit, since he cannot claim a price for each user.”[1]
1Aug2000 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedNeither Left nor Right
The problem with the pendulum approach is that Adam Smith is characterized as “extreme” as Karl Marx. By implication, neither economist is sensible.
1Jul2000 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedIn Defense of the Rich
“The substantial canons of the leisure-class scheme of life are a conspicuous waste of time and substance and a withdrawal from the industrial process.”
—Thorstein Veblen[1]
Mark Skousen (http://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 textbook, Economic Logic, is [...]
Is Greed Good?
“Unbridled avarice is not in the least the equivalent of capitalism, still less its ‘spirit’.”
—Max Weber[1]
Mark Skousen (http://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 textbook, Economic Logic, is now available from FEE.
Recently greed has become [...]
What It Takes to Be an Objective Scholar
Mark Skousen (http://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 textbook, Economic Logic, is now available from FEE.
“It was the facts that changed my mind.” —Julian Simon1
During the 1990s, we watched the Dow Jones Industrial Average increase fourfold [...]
Will the Savings Crisis Lead to Stagnation?
Mark Skousen (http://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 textbook, Economic Logic, is now available from FEE.
“There is a virtuous cycle in which high growth promotes high
saving, and high saving in turn promotes high growth.”
—Joseph Stigltz, Chief [...]
Economics on Trial
The Laffer Curve—the theory that when taxes are too high, reducing them would actually raise tax revenue—is dismissed. “When Reagan cut taxes after he was elected, the result was less revenue, not more,” reports Mankiw in his popular textbook.2 Never mind that tax revenues actually rose significantly every year of the Reagan administration; the perception is that supply-side economics has been discredited.
1Feb2000 | Mark Skousen | 0 comments | ContinuedEconomics for the 21st Century
Mark Skousen (http://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 textboook, Economic Logic, is now available from FEE.
“Nature has set no limit to the realization of our hopes.”
—Marquis de Condorcet
Recently I came across the extraordinary writings of the [...]
A Private-Sector Solution to Poverty
Mark Skousen (http://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 textbook, Economic Logic, is now available from FEE.
“The able bodied poor don’t want or need charity. . . . All they need is financial capital.”
—Muhammad Yunus
For years free-market [...]
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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
