Assorted Links (9/14/2009)

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading today (organized by topic):

Economics and the Financial Crisis

Here, Alex Tabarrok critiques Paul Krugman’s recent New York Times essay entitled “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong”; Krugman’s answer to his own question is that the economics profession had become so fixated on so-called efficient markets theory that “Discussion of investor irrationality, of bubbles, of destructive speculation had virtually disappeared from academic discourse.” Tabarrok counters that “…if we are to understand recent history it’s neither true nor useful to argue that Greenspan and other economists thought the price was always right”.

Health Care Reform

  • Fact-Checking the President on Health Insurance, by Scott Harrington

Wall Street Journal : “Responsible reform requires careful analysis of the underlying causes of problems in health insurance and informed debate over the benefits and costs of targeted remedies. The president’s continued demonization of private health insurance in pursuit of his broad agenda of government expansion is inconsistent with that objective.”

Politics, Law and Regulation

  • Free Speech, Now that Speech Is Free, by Gordon Crovitz

Wall Street Journal: “Political campaign regulations are silly in the age of YouTube.”

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