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Mike Munger’s latest EconTalk episode with Russ – on Mike’s new book (co-authored with Kevin Munger), Choosing in Groups – is great.

Inspired by this post by Tyler Cowen, my unconventional colleague Bryan Caplan shares some of his conventional views, such as this one (that I also share):

Most academics are out of touch with the real world and have little useful to say about it.

(This view, of course, is not conventional among academics, most of whom fancy themselves as possessing deep insight into, and special knowledge of, the workings of the economy and society.  In addition to these absurd fancies, most academics also believe – even more absurdly – that they are of nobler and purer character than are the icky likes of entrepreneurs, investors, and other profit-seeking business people – people who are actually willing and able to be productive in ways judged as such by real-world consumers; ways that not one academic in 500 could possibly pull off.  Academics, in general, – and like politicians – ought not be taken seriously.  A shockingly large number of them are ignorant and officious fools.)

The person whose pessimism about the future of the economy I take most seriously is Bob Higgs.

Jerry Jordan explains that Greece’s current economic woes are emphatically not the results of “foreign money” or austerity.  (HT Steve Pejovich)  A slice:

The Greek economy has become ossified by its regulations, tax laws, labor and environmental laws, pensions systems, cronyism, patronage and corruption in the legislature, as well as barriers to foreign capital. The stagnation of the Greek economy was not caused by foreign-imposed “austerity,” but by domestic policies built up over decades.

Students!  Consider applying for the Independent Institute’s Summer 2015 Challenge of Liberty seminars.

My old friend Tom Miller explores some of the legislative history that is relevant to the pending U.S. Supreme Court case King v. Burwell.

Diane Katz spells out several other reasons for shutting down that great geyser of cronyism, the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

John Taylor compares the U.S. economy’s recovery from the recession of the early 1980s to the U.S. economy’s recovery from the recession caused by the 2007-08 financial crisis.

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