There is a famous passage in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money where John Maynard Keynes suggests that the government could bury banknotes in old coal mines, fill the mines with rubbish, and let private enterprise dig them back up. He was not joking. Or rather, he was joking, but the joke contained […]
The Case for Digging Holes: Why Productivity Isn’t Always the Point Read More »
You have probably seen the posts. “Change your mindset, change your life.” “Believe it and achieve it.” “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” These slogans sell millions of books and fill arenas with eager audiences clutching notebooks. They are clean. They are memorable. They are, if Willard
The Anti-Guru Manifesto: Why Quine Would Laugh at Simple Self-Help Formulas Read More »
There is a strange contradiction at the heart of modern economies. We subsidize corn, bail out banks, offer tax breaks to corporations that relocate their headquarters across state lines, and hand checks to homeowners for installing solar panels. But when it comes to the single most productive asset a society can build – an educated
Why We Should Pay Students to Graduate: A Direct Investment in Human Capital Read More »
You probably think freedom means doing whatever you want, whenever you want. No restrictions. No obligations. Just pure, unfiltered choice stretching out in every direction like an open field with no fences. Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most difficult and brilliant philosophers of the twentieth century, would tell you that this picture is not just
The Paradox of Freedom: Why We Need Rules to Be Truly Free Read More »
Most people assume that totalitarian regimes rise because one exceptionally evil genius seizes power. A mad dictator hypnotizes millions, and the rest is tragedy. It is a comforting story. It is also wrong. Hannah Arendt spent decades trying to understand how the worst political systems in human history actually worked. What she found was far
Totalitarianism for Dummies: The Simple Recipe for Extreme Evil Read More »
There is something almost theatrical about watching a Fortune 500 company release a statement on social justice. The language is careful. The font is tasteful. The logo gets a seasonal makeover. And somewhere in the background, the same company is lobbying for tax loopholes that would make a Renaissance pope blush. This is not hypocrisy
The Economics of Virtue Signaling: Why Companies Talk Values but Chase Rents Read More »
You will haggle over the price of bread. You will compare three stores to save forty cents on a loaf. You will feel genuine irritation when the price jumps from $3.50 to $4.20. Then you will walk into an Apple Store and spend $1,000 on a phone that is barely different from the one in
Why We Experience “Price Pain” for Bread but Not for $1,000 Tech Upgrades Read More »
Here is something strange about modern work. We have more tools than ever to save time, and yet nobody has any. Your team is drowning in Slack messages, sprint reviews, status updates, and “quick syncs” that are never quick. Everyone is busy. Nobody is thinking. Herbert Simon saw this coming. He was an economist, a
How to Manage a Team When Nobody Has Time to Think Read More »
Everyone has a theory about why divorce rates climbed so dramatically in the second half of the twentieth century. The usual suspects get rounded up every time: declining moral values, the sexual revolution, secularism, feminism, social media, dating apps. Pick your villain. The story practically writes itself, and it always ends with a nostalgic sigh
The Secret Reason Behind Rising Divorce Rates: It’s Not Values, It’s Incentives Read More »
Most economists in the mid twentieth century were busy drawing elegant diagrams on chalkboards and explaining how markets reach beautiful equilibria. Stigler walked into the room and asked a different question. Not how things should work. How they actually work. The answer, it turns out, is far less flattering to everyone involved. George Stigler won
Economics Without Romance: A Brutal Guide to How the World Actually Works Read More »