This is the third in a series of posts on my new book, The Pursuit of Justice: Law and Economics of Legal Institutions. In this post I will discuss how the law evolves instrumentally — that is, to serve private interests rather than the public interest. Law is often assumed to be a public...
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Warren Buffett’s annual “Letter to Shareholders” may be more famous, but I’d put this “Periodic Overview” from our friend, investment manager Roger King, up against it any day: RUMINATIONS AND OBSERVATIONS A Periodic Overview The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings: the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing...
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(click on image to enlarge) HT: Guy Monahan and Julie Sheppard

As reported by Lawrence Solomon in the Financial Post, prominent climate scientist/alarmist Mike Hulme has now admitted that: The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider....
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I was talking with a new college graduate recently who told me of his plan to buy a BMW. He doesn’t have the money to do it now, but said that after he had a job for a few years and had some income saved up, getting a BMW was something he aspired to....
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Today, the Court decided Ontario v. Quon. At issue was the right of the City of Ontario to read text messages sent by its employee’s on City-issued pagers. In a nutshell, the City issued employees pagers, noticed that the number of messages sent exceeded the plan (although the employees personally paid for overages), and thus...
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David, Stewart’s bit was indeed insightful and encouraging, one of the best he’s done in a while, and I found it very funny and compelling. All your points are well taken. But I must nitpick Stewart’s comparison of Obama to Frodo. It was hilarious, but it seems to be a bit too charitable. While...
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On Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” host Jon Stewart powerfully attacks President Barack Obama as a hypocrite and power-mongering opportunist regarding the writ of habeas corpus and other legal standards as protected under the U.S. Constitution. As Stewart shows, Obama repeatedly claimed that he was going to reverse the unconstitutional assaults on civil liberties...
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. . . is led by people like this volunteer fire chief, who spearheaded an “illegal” collective action to protect their territory from possible ruination from the oil spill. One of many great bits in the article: When he first began gathering resources, county officials told him he was blowing things out of proportion,...
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In a recent debate, scholars fiercely debated whether or not Texas was really a “small-government” state when compared to California (or any other state). The BP spill, some argued, showed that places like Texas and Alabama were gimme states with their hands out to the federal government. No doubt there is some truth to...
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