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Some Links

Kevin Vallier, over at Bleeding Heart Libertarians, points us to what looks to be an important paper by UNC-Chapel Hill philosopher Jonathan Anomaly (his real name).  Here’s a slice from Vallier’s post:

[I]f you think there is even a mild presumption against the use of government coercion, such that government inaction is a weak default, Anomaly shows you that justifying government action to provide public goods is still extremely difficult. A natural conclusion is that most common arguments for government provision of public goods are pretty bad or seriously incomplete. In fact, given Anomaly’s sensible hurdles, it’s hard to see how we could get one off the ground in principle.

Alberto Mingardi, over at EconLog, points us to a post by Richard Epstein on how labor unions are at least sometimes enemies of cultural enrichment.

Mark Perry provides further evidence that, despite Uncle Sam’s and U.S. states’ continuing interference in markets, ordinary Americans’ standard of living continues to rise.

Speaking of ordinary (and poor) Americans’ living standards, here are Scott Winship’s latest careful contributions to this subject.  First here, and then here.  The bottom line is that the course of ordinary Americans’ living standards is no where near as dire as mainstream-media mythology would have us believe.

Further speaking of poor Americans’ living standards, Coyote Blog points us to an important essay in Forbes by Tim Worstall.  Be sure not to miss the graph, and check out especially the course of Americans’ “consumption poverty rate.”

John Cochrane (like Niall Ferguson) minces no words in calling out Paul Krugman for being over-the-top ungenerous, disingenuous, and hyper-partisan – just downright uncivilized – in his [Krugman’s] public writings.

John Stossel isn’t fooled by the hysteria uncorked by the government ‘shutdown.

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