Cafe Hayek - Latest Comments in The Best Deal Going

Re: The Best Deal Going

mini — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:58:38 -0000

I haven't been up to anything. My mind is like an empty room, but such is life. Maybe tomorrow. Today was a loss, but eh.

Re: The Best Deal Going

tom — Wed, 03 May 2006 04:48:31 -0000

It IS an incredibly good deal, but don't feel so bad. Lazy people like you (and me) contribute by saving our money that is then invested in those entrepreneurs who improve our lives. An entrepreneurs idea is just an idea unless he or she has the funding and capital that can turn it in to reality. Consuming the finished product is only made possible if there is enough savings to fund those ideas.

Re: The Best Deal Going

jomama — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 05:59:20 -0000

I'm also a poacher and agree with your assessment, Don.

But I would re-write this...

I have the great good fortune to live in a society that encourages truly creative people to share the fruits of their creativity with me.

...to this...

I have the great good fortune to live in a society that encourages truly creative people to profit from their creativity.

Re: The Best Deal Going

ipninja — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:05:51 -0000

I thought that professors were idea entreprenuers. Isn't that one of the motivations behind the tenure construct, to reduce conformity pressures and encourage more risky academic research?

Re: The Best Deal Going

Eric H — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 09:19:46 -0000

Re: Kennedy and the wind critics:

Andrew Perlman, forget the NIMBY crowd and beware of the BANANA crowd (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything). Their likely counter-attack: "Where are you going to put this dangerous coal-conversion plant, which is only making it easier to create CO2?"

Re: The Best Deal Going

save_the_rustbelt — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:31:25 -0000

So we can repeal the $14B welfare package for oil companies now?

Don is the first tenured professor I've heard who is honest about his absence from the real world, kudos for that.

Re: The Best Deal Going

WMCW — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 06:21:59 -0000

I think you are not a free rider. It makes me think of a historian who admires great characters of the past. He must be a great historian too.

Free riders are looking at their sides, from lest to rigth. They do not look at the future neither the past.

Besides, as an entrepreneur I know many "colleagues" that are much worse for society than free riders, but this is other subject.

Re: The Best Deal Going

Charlie Quidnunc — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:27:41 -0000

Go and listen to Nancy Pelosi rant for independence from foreign sources of energy. Them nasty foreign carbon molecules have to be done away with. Only American molecules allowed from 2016 on. It's on my podcast from this morning in the trackbacks above. Lot's of fun, including reading from Don's post and a clip from the NPR program he refers to.

Re: The Best Deal Going

David Andrew Taylor — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:31:50 -0000

You never saw any of these politicians clamoring to solve the energy probelms when oil was trading at $11.00. But, capitalism seems to have worked to solve that problem and oil prices moderated. Same goes for prices at these levels. Entreprenuers are going to smell an opportunity. This could actually spell the end of our dependency on oil because of it.

Re: The Best Deal Going

Mcwop — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 10:47:25 -0000

What I like is when self proclaimed environmentalist politicians kill the very solutions that they claim to support:

http://www.boston.com/news/...

Re: The Best Deal Going

happyjuggler0 — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 10:29:15 -0000

What I like is when people are mad because they think we are emitting too much carbon (greenhouse gas), while at the same time they get mad because they think that carbon (oil) is priced too high. LMAO.

Re: The Best Deal Going

Dom — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 09:31:51 -0000

You know what I like? When one and the same person tells us that Big Oil is killing us with high prices, and Walmart is killing us with low prices.

Re: The Best Deal Going

mike — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 05:22:21 -0000

ross, i think your concept of externalities is a bit skewed. An externality is present any time an action you take confers a benefit or cost on someone else that is not captured by the price mechanism.

Also, there is never a signal that a market has enough or not enough competition. Even if markets are hypothetically perfectly competitive, if you can produce something more cheaply, you'll gain enormous market share for example.

Re: The Best Deal Going

ross williams — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:06:39 -0000

@JohnJ - Just becuase it is not produced in America does not mean its wasn't invented by one, as American produced could could also be invested by non-americans

Others may feel a sense of pride in buying American, but i just don't have that nationalist feeling. I almost prefer having my clothing made in an obscure location. It amazes me the connection I have to the Mariana Islands through my shirt, or my jeans from Mexico.

But all this lazy bum talk has got me thinking, an i need some help from a more seasoned economist: doesn't every trade have a positive externality, by the very fact that a person receiving a good values it more than he is giving up, yet i am not being paid that amount? Doesn't competition enlarge these externalities? If so, then because externalities reduce incentive, do not externalities bring about a 'perfect' or 'equilibrium' amount of externalities? Is this actually a good thing, as it signals to others that a certain market already has enough competition?

This seems to completely go against my micro teaching, but i know i'm onto something

...though i have a good feeling my logic is off also.

Re: The Best Deal Going

JohnJ — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:52:46 -0000

Don't forget how you support the economy every time you buy something! Support Americam entrepreneurism; buy something! Anything!

Re: The Best Deal Going

Bret — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 14:08:41 -0000

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't rub it in. Those of us who are entrepreneurial and work around the clock often wonder "what the heck was I thinking when I started this venture? I'd shoulda just sat back and let other profit-hungry hard-working anxiety-ridden folk do the entrepreneurial thang!"

You ARE a free-rider, lazy bum, and poacher.

But at least you run an interesting blog.