Monthly Archives: April 2011

Software in the Real World

It’s hard to know how to react when someone you’re criticizing insists you don’t actually disagree. Tyler Cowen is a smart guy, so I’m going to take it as a compliment. And it’s true that very little in Chapter 3 … Continue reading

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The Great Ephemeralization

I recently had the pleasure of reading The Great Stagnation, Tyler Cowen’s excellent “Kindle Single” about the future of innovation and economic growth. Cowen makes the case that, contrary to the right-of-center conventional wisdom, the American economy is in the … Continue reading

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Mueller: Supporting Mobile Merger is “Insane”

Milton Meuller makes the case against the AT&T/T-Mobile merger: Let’s begin at the beginning and ask why this merger is happening. It’s not as if AT&T is gaining dominance the way Google gained it in search and advertising, or the … Continue reading

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Bitcoin’s Collusion Problem

Yesterday I questioned whether we should expect demand for Bitcoins to be stable over the long run. Today I want to look at the supply side. A constrained supply of money is important to a currency’s stability. One of Bitcoin’s … Continue reading

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The Bitcoin Bubble

My friend Jerry Brito is one of the best-connected and most insightful observers of the Internet I know, so when he starts talking up an Internet trend, I pay attention. But after reading his case for Bitcoin, a new digital … Continue reading

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Our Absurd Immigration System

Like Conor Friedersdorf, I’m thrilled that Andrew Sullivan has gotten his green card. And I also agree with Conor that we Americans should be embarrassed that it took 18 years: Think about what his case says about our system as … Continue reading

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Urbanism and Limited Government

This month, Cato Unbound is hosting a debate on parking policy. Donald Shoup kicks things off with a compelling argument for a quintessential libertarian policy proposal: repeal minimum parking regulations and use market rates to set on-street parking. Shoup explains … Continue reading

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High-Stakes Testing vs. Bottom-up Education

Aaron Swartz has an imaginary socratic dialogue with Matt Yglesias about high-stakes testing: We once allowed each teacher to direct their classroom in their own way, but high-stakes tests and “value-added” measurements now force all of them into the same … Continue reading

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