I have selected some of these essays to go into a book of readings. For now, I call the book Learning Economics.

Below, essays are listed chronologically, which means that the newest ones are all the way at the bottom.

Arguing in My Spare Time

These essays are called "Arguing in My Spare Time," from a classic Monty Python routine. These essays may be redistributed for non-commercial purposes only. They may not be sold or included in any publications for sale without the author's permission.

1. Your Bank is Not Microsoft
2. There is no Labor Shortage
3. The New Industrial State and the Rise of the Dilbert Sector
4. Why Microsoft Doesn't Have to Cheat to Win
5. THE ECONOMICS OF POP-TARTS
6. Start the Java Revolution Without Me Part One: Demographics
7. Impediments to the Java Revolution Part Two: Applications
8. Boxes Without Windows
9. Does Software Want to be Free?
10. Software Clubs
11. Software Referees
12. From Allocating Capital to Allocating Talent
13. The Junta Hypothesis
14. The Junta Hypothesis, part 2
15. Thoughts on Scale, Scope, and Bureaucracy
16. Should Corporations Encourage More Risk-Taking?
17. Unleashing the Killer Essay
18. Equity Without Capital
19. Deconstructing McKinsey
20. "King of Hearts" Rules (review of Varian and Shapiro)
21. Saving vs. Innovation
22. But Who Owns It?
23. Stealth Trends on the Internet
24. Information Haves and Have-nots
25. Break up Microsoft?
26. Is This Risk Necessary?
27. Risk, Leverage, and Talent
28. Summing Up
29. The Nurture Assumption (book review)
30. Keynes Then and Now aimst 2.01
31. Future uncertainty and present indeterminacy aimst 2.02
32. The Internet Boom as a System aimst 2.03
33. Cosby's Gas Station Attendant aimst 2.04
34. The User Disenfranchisement Movement aimst 2.05
35. Airplay aimst 2.06
36. The Software Production Function aimst 2.07
37. Diminishing Returns in Software Development aimst 2.08
38. Arithmetic in a Bubble aimst 2.09
39. The Economics of Franchise Value aimst 2.10
40. The Case for Formal Models aimst 2.11 (Fukuyama)
41. The Last Inch and Metcalfe's Law aimst 2.12
42. Grover and the Silver Bullet aimst 2.13
43. Wampum, Trading Posts, and Barter aimst 2.14
44. Boids and Kenny Rogers aimst 2.15
45. Personalization, Portability, and Ownership aimst 2.16
46. Low Growth, High "q" aimst 2.17
47. A Sequence of Miscalculations aimst 2.18 (Swarthmore Bulletin version
48. Building a Bridge to Neil Postman aimst 2.19
49. Effective Tournaments aimst 2.20
50. Microsoft and the Anointed aimst 2.21
51. Douglas Rushkoff, Anvil Salesman aimst 2.22
52. People Protocols aimst 2.23
53. Data Mining is a Fad aimst 2.24
54. The Weird Turn Pro--my Web Faves aimst 2.25
55. Virtual History of the Internet aimst 3.01
56. Netscape Syndrome aimst 3.02
57. Briefing the President aimst 3.03
58. Meetings, Centralized Management, and Reed's Law aimst 3.04
59. IMpersonalization aimst 3.05
60. WebMethods in WebMadness aimst 3.06
61. Jakob: A Way to Overcome Bad Web Design aimst 3.07
62. What's the Web for? aimst 3.08
63. Life after the Death of the Dumb Buyer aimst 3.09
64. The Bubble and the Immaculate Expansion aimst 3.10
65. Ideological Anachronisms aimst 3.11
66. Peanut Butter, Jelly, and the Antitrust Knife aimst 3.12
67. Outside the Box aimst 3.13
68. Money, Prices, and the New Economy aimst 3.14
69. Farmers and Parasites aimst 3.15
70. Rewriting the Book aimst 3.16
71. Compassionate Libertarianism aimst 3.17
72. The Second Derivative aimst 3.18
73. World War Internet aimst 3.19
74. Autoregressive Models aimst 3.20
75. Mark McGwire Strategy in a Lou Brock Era aimst 3.21
76. Efficiency, Entrepreneurship, and Education aimst 3.22
77. Equity, Entrepreneurship, and Education aimst 3.23
78. In Search of a Collective Conscience aimst 3.23
79. Bobos in Camden aimst 3.25
80. Techno-mysticism aimst 3.26
81. Comparative Advantage Plays aimst 3.27
82. Some Keynes for Bush aimst 3.28
83. Halberstam's Law aimst 4.01
84. Paradox of Profits aimst 4.02
85. The Real Meaning of the Internet Economy aimst 4.03
86. The Sour Spot aimst 4.04
87. A Fad Ap-peers aimst 4.05
88. The Club Vs. the Silo aimst 4.06
89. Blinder, Murphy, and Hubbard aimst 4.07
90. Krugman and the Great Blowfish aimst 4.08
91. Invest Wisely aimst 4.09
92. Woodheads aimst 4.10
93. Equilibrium in the Market for Rock'n'Roll
94. Cruel Paternalism aimst 4.11
95. Data Deposit Boxes aimst 4.12
96. Infrastructure for Clubs aimst 4.13
97. Email Protection Service aimst 4.14
98. Willie Sutton and the Leaky Buckets aimst 4.15
99. Brick and Mortarboards aimst 4.16
100. Fewer Phones, Dumber Terminals, Smarter Attention Sentries (Bandwidth Utopia) aimst 4.17
101. Arithmetic in a Whine aimst 4.18
102. Explaining Markets to Californians aimst 4.19
103. A Meditation on Innovation aimst 4.20
104. Trouble in Bobos' Paradise aimst 4.21
105. Passport Intifada aimst 4.22
106. Law and Economics in Cyberspace aimst 4.23
107. Betting Against Goliath aimst 4.24
108. Remembering Pearl Harbor aimst 4.25
109. A Framework for Victory aimst 4.26
110. Who wants to be a Yankee? aimst 4.27
111. The Tack Toward Appeasement aimst 4.28
112. Surveillance Principles aimst 4.29
113. Confrontation Vs. Wishful Thinking aimst 4.30
114. Homeland Defense and the Tooth Fairy aimst 4.31
115. Economics and The Transparent Society aimst 4.32
116. The Radical Center and the One-Race Doctrine aimst 4.33
117. The Next Software Platform: Headsets aimst 4.34
118. The Growth Doctrine aimst 5.01
119. The Growth Doctrine and Policy aimst 5.02
120. Privacy Luddites aimst 5.03
121. 75 Percent Mental aimst 5.04
122. Participatory Databases aimst 5.05
123. Asymptotically Free Goods aimst 5.06
124. Common Sense and Sensibility Economics and the Environment, part one (for TechCentralStation)
125. Lomborg's Lessons Economics and the Environment, part two (for TechCentralStation)
126. Listen to the Technology how the music industry could work without selling CD's (for TechCentral Station)
127. Introduction to Macroeconomics
128. Stock Options, Start-ups, and Venture Capital (for Corante bottomline)
129. The Mirror Image Libel aimst 5.07
130. Keeping Up with the Cloneses aimst 5.08
131. The War on Terrorism: A Strategic Survey aimst 5.09
132. Socialism and Baseball (for TechCentralStation)
133. Corporate Profits and the Internet (for Corante bottomline)
134. Is Blogging a Fad? (for Corante bottomline)
135. The Programming Soviet (for TechCentralStation)
136. News of My Death why newspapers will require philantropic support in 20 years (for TechCentralStation)
137. Consumer to Microsoft: Trust This! on spam filtering, for Corante bottomline
138. Moore's Bailiff why Moore's Law favors a wireless last mile, for TechCentralStation
139. Dumb Mobs the Internet and stock market volatility, for TechCentralStation
140. Rationally Exuberant How Moore's Law is raising economic growth, for TechCentralStation
141. Can Greenspan Steer? for TechCentralStation
142. Packet Express and Thingies for TechCentralStation
143. Packet Express and Thingies, Part 2 for TechCentralStation
144. Progress and Displacement for TechCentralStation
145. The Economics of the Wireless Last Mile for Economics and Liberty
146. What's Your Margin of Safety? stock market valuation, for TechCentralStation
147. The Trackable Society and legamorons, for TechCentralStation
148. The New Political Economy? for TechCentralStation
149. Sweetwater vs. Saltwater for TechCentralStation
150. What Causes Prosperity? (Cracking the Code) working version
151. Outlaws and Databases for TechCentralStation
152. Edge Power for TechCentralStation
153. Phase Out Medicare for TechCentralStation
154. Betting Against Convergence for TechCentralStation
155. No Boundaries: Israel's Reluctance to Fight Palestinians
156. Content is Crap for TechCentralStation
157. Oil Econ 101 for TechCentralStation
158. Living in Minus on the Israeli economy, for TechCentralStation
159. Economic Idiotarianism for TechCentralStation
160. The Language Barrier the English-speaking advantage in the Internet economy, for TCS
161. Join the Conversation why we need an Economic Blog of the President, for TCS
162. A Commons Misconception about spectrum policy, for TechCentralStation
163. Information Awareness applying Bayes' Theorem for TechCentralStation
164. A Metaphor's Metaphors intellectual property, for TechCentralStation
165. Whose Supply-Side Are You On? for TechCentralStation
166. Suits and Geeks what Geeks should know about economics, for TechCentralStation
167. What is Unusual? about the Iraq war, for TechCentralStation
168. Dear War Protesters for TechCentralStation
169. Can You Comment? an Iraqi military press conference, for TechCentralStation
170. Can Money Buy Happiness? for TechCentralStation
171. Government Is the Solution (Iraqi reconstruction) for TechCentralStation
172. The Elastic Economy for TechCentralStation
173. Social Software for TechCentralStation
174. Don't Smoot the Weasels for TechCentralStation
175. The Intellectual: Will He Wither Away? by Merle Kling
176. The High-Cost Producer why government should spend less on education, for TechCentralStation
177. Moore Vs. Plato for TechCentralStation
178. Would Keynes Change His Mind? for TechCentralStation
179. Marx's Nightmare on file swapping, for TechCentralStation
180. Survey Says on revealed preference, for TechCentralStation
181. Celebrate Diversity Miltonia and Hillaria, for TechCentralStation
182. Failing the Test against standardized school testing, for TechCentralStation
183. The Statism Trap for TechCentralStation
184. Economic Attribution Errors for TechCentralStation
185. America is Mentally Ill for TechCentralStation
186. Worse than Spam for TCS
187. The Centrifuge Moves You for TCS
188. Bubbleheads Overvalued Dollar and Bonds, for TCS
189. Quack Economic Prescription drug price controls, for TCS
190. Fighting Murphy a Social Security policy primer
191. Walden Puddle's Candidate Dean and Decentralization
192. Please Outsource to My Daughter for TCS
193. Mandatory Libertarianism on school vouchers, for TCS
194. The Great Race between Moore's Law and Medicare, for TCS
195. Sink the Terrorists for TCS
196. I Love Lucy labor force capacity utilization, for TCS
197. The Real Internet Candidate (John Locke) for TCS
198. My Libertarian Persuasion for TCS
199. Real World 101 for TCS
200. Manufacturing a Crisis for TCS
201. The President's Macroeconomic Report Card
202. The World's Nicest Holding Pen college, for TCS
203. The Zen of Feedback for TCS
204. The UN Party vs. the U.S. Party?
205. Bleeding-heart Libertarianism replacing the welfare state with a consumption tax
206. Security Intervention? Should users of Microsoft software pay a security tax?
207. Health Insurance Do-nots
208. An Open Letter to Paul Krugman type C and type M arguments
209. The Great Displacement
210. Economics vs. Populism
211. Nonlinear Thinking
212. Group-Thinking and the Angry Left
213. Hayek, Stiglitz, and Michael Powell also, the Washington Times version
214. Will Science Save Social Security? for AEI magazine online
215. Managing the Terror War
216. An Open Letter to Jack Valenti
217. The Sect of Austrian Economics
218. The Technology Edge government and research
219. The Balance of Saving
220. Immigration: A Better Way
221. The Libertarian Alternative? Lieberman
222. Dear Unemployed Techie
223. Biotech Ends and Means
224. The Internet and Mobocracy
225. Updating Tom Wolfe
226. The Terror War's Inevitable Fog
227. Taking Advantage Roll Over, Ricardo
228. Privatization: The Ultimate "Lockbox" for Social Security
229. The Downfall of the Anointed
230. The FlexDollar Welfare State
231. Decisions Under Uncertainty
232. Freedom Without Responsibility
233. The Problem with Dead White Males
234. Economists and their Inquisitors
235. Red Sox Technologies
236. The Case of the Employment Forecast
237. Zero-Sum Bioethics
238. Nurturance and Terrorism
239. The Constitution of Surveillance
240. Pandora's Bundle
241. Hating the Solution (Strange Paradox)
242. What's Wrong With Paternalism?
243. What's Wrong with Social Security?
244. The Innovationist (report on Milken conference)
245. Don't Resign, Rumsfeld
246. Leave the Educrats Behind
247. A Proposal to Fight Cultural Segregation
248. Technological Tap Dance (wiretapping is obsolete)
249. The Destabilizing Oil Speculator
250. The Forty Years War (the media vs. conservatives)
251. Reagonomics in Context
252. A 2020 Vision for Education
253. The Left's Tactical Weapons
254. Bubble, Bubble, is there Trouble? (housing)
255. Against Wonkism (Fogel)
256. The Good News About Productivity
257. How Much Worse Off Are We?
258. Our Coming Ideological Battles health care policy
259. A Terrible Waste of Taxes (higher education)
260. The Battle of the Mosque
261. Actions and Words Kerry's acceptance speech
262. When President Bush Speaks
263. The Happiness Police
264. The Terrorism Funnel
265. Self-Righteous Prescription drug companies as public utilities?
266. Middle Man Mess health insurance disintermediation
267. Understanding Middle-Class Squeeze
268. Winning the Health Care Olympics
269. Long on Specifics (Bush's acceptance speech)
270. Government and the Fear Factor
271. Hating the Producers
272. Getting to Health Care for Tomorrow
273. Bobos in Baghdad
274. Learning Economics
275. The Escalation of Income
276. You Call This Health Insurance?
277. Saving Freedom
278. Sympathy for the Undecided
279. Economic Illiteracy Quadrifecta
280. Taking Kuttner's Health Care Challenge
281. News Flash: Nobel Laureate Criticizes Bush Tax Cuts!
282. Four Myths About Social Security
283. Libertarian Anti-Gravity
284. Court Gives Election to Bush
285. In Defense of Exit Polls
286. Reality-Based Election Analysis
287. Toward a Single-digit Tax Rate
288. On Intelligence, People, and Computers
289. "I'm Willing to be Wrong" (Bernie Saffran)
290. Social Security's Worn-out Roof
291. Why the Left Should Favor Social Security Privatization (and the Right Should Oppose It)
292. The Academic Ego Game
293. Economics of Social Security Privatization
294. Dollar Drama, Dollar Delusions
295. Capitalism Without Capital
296. Debate and Demagoguery
297. Krugman and DeLong on Social Security
298. Lifespan--the Long and Short of it
299. Wall Street Journal Celebrity Deathmatch
300. The Anglosphere Challenge to the Political Left
301. Take the Plus (Incremental Social Security Reform)
302. No War Over Oil
303. Shoot the Stupid Consumer (rebate
304. Health Insurance and Bankruptcy
305. The Millionaire Next Door vs. the Politician in Washington
306. Ego, Testosterone, and the Academy (the Summers flap)
307. Who is a Pragmatist?
308. Actuarially Unsound
309. New Economic Paradigm (vs. math)
310. Doctoring the Market (learning vs. technocratic)
311. The Myth of Massive Health Care Waste
312. Lawrence Summers as Martin Luther
313. Conservative Crack-up Over Social Security?
314. The Mythical Health Care Man-Month
315. Do We Own Our Ailments?
316. Health Care Intelligence Failure?
317. Your Money for Your Life
318. Poverty and Spending on Health Care
319. Only in America: Activist Medicine
320. The Law of Proportionate Belief
321. Are Newt and Hillary on to Something? Sort Of...
322. Colonoscopies: Up Yours!
323. The Commission We Need: An Immodest Health Care Proposal
324. The Collectivist Feeling
325. Be Careful What You Pay For
326. Freakonomics or Amateur Sociology?
327. Fight Socienics
328. The Folk Song Army Sings Africa
329. Terrorism Lessons from 1870
330. Elvis and Fischer Black: Analyzing Perfect Capital Markets
331. The Food Court Economy
332. Surveillance After London
333. Slicing the Pizza (Modigliani-Miller)
334. One Price for Risk (CAPM)
335. Financial Innovation in Perfect Capital Markets
336. The Proper Attitude Toward Financial Innovation
337. We Need 250 States
338. Where I'd Bet Against Kurzweil
339. Incumbent Politicians vs. the Long Tail
340. Libertarian Basics
341. How Economists Really View Health Insurance (Gladwell)
342. Grey-Area Medicine
343. A Challenge for Brad DeLong
344. The Impossibility of 'Planned Improvisation'
345. The Planning Illusion
346. A Case for Immigration
347. Economic Man vs. Status Man
348. Kurzweilomics
349. The Age of Radical Enhancement
350. Surveillance Supremacy
351. Economists Mugged by Reality (Saffran conference)
352. Who Pays for Health Insurance?
353. Iran's Declaration of War
354. Reconsidering the Bush Doctrine
355. Separation of Family and State
356. Why People Hate Economics
357. Right Plan, Wrong State (for the Weekly Standard)
358. Tyler Cowen's Law
359. What Textbooks Should be Like (Harford, Undercover)
360. Iraq and the Corruption Trap
361. Who Wants Health Insurance?
362. We Need Domestic Spying
363. The Most Important Economic News of the Year
364. Reviving Political Economy
365. The Materialism Fallacy
366. Kuttner vs. Friedman
367. Liberals Should Know Better (Walmart)
368. How Great Thinkers Influence Us (folk Keynesianism)
369. Folk Beliefs Have Consequences (Locke and Marx)
370. The Diabetes Legend
371. Stuck on 1968
372. Moral Equivalent of War, Again?
373. Stuck on Galbraith
374. How to Get What We Want--Better Health Care (SF Chronicle)
375. The Politics of Economic Nationalism
376. The Moses Complex
377. Fair or Foul? (patent, Blackberry)
378. Is Socialized Medicine the Answer? (Krugman, Wells)
379. Throwing the Jews under the Bus
380. The Battle of the Borders
381. Tribal Politics (national socialism)
382. Fear of Confrontation (Iran)
383. Medicare is Part of the Problem (for Foxnews)
384. Bill of Health (Mass. health plan) or here
385. Massachusetts Delusion
386. Law and Order
387. Don't Worry, Be Happy--Or Else
388. A Solution at the Stroke of a Pen
389. Energy Policy for Idiots
390. Group Power (Kohn)
391. The Future of Health Care Policy
392. The Real Enemy
393. The Family Vs. The State
394. Limits to Math? (Warsh)
395. Minding the Health Gap (Marmot, Hadler)
396. Libertarianism and Poverty
397. Interview on Health Care
398. Are You a Conservative?
399. That's Your Cue
400. Israel's Vietnam
401. The Era of Hostage States
402. The Age of Post-National Warfare
403. A Preference for Ignorance
404. The Sane Mutiny
405. Three Can't-miss School Reforms
406. Naming Our Enemies (on Posner)
407. The Case for Staying Home
408. A Military Strategy, Not a Marketing Strategy
409. From Far Left to Libertarian
410. Dear Libertarian Democrat
411. A Dialogue with a Liberal (10 principles)
412. Adding Passengers to the Titanic
413. The Leadership Myth
414. Operation Sunscreen
415. Blame the Iraqis First
416. Milton Friedman's Case
417. The Exceptionally Entrepreneurial Society
418. Families, Entrepreneurs, and Inequality
419. Education and Entrepreneurship
420. Two Strategies for Avoiding Truth
421. Iraq's Natural State
422. Insulation vs. Insurance for Cato Unbound
423. Appreciating our Moral and Mental Development
424. The Big Three (free-market agenda)
425. For Whom the Bell Curves: America's Educational Dilemma (Charles Murray)
426. Instapundits and Instascholars
427. Plato's Republic or Milton Friedman's Market?
428. Request for Ideological Comment
429. Why Be a Libertarian Conservative?
430. The Five Big Questions About Health Care
431. Just in Case: How to Think about Uncertainty and Global Warming
432. Religion, Government, and Civil Society
433. The YouBubble
434. The Political Economy of Alternative Energy
435. Foundations of the Kling School
436. The Arbiter with the Golden Scepter
437. Is there a Science of Success?
438. Politics, Decision Theory, and Contradictory Complaints
439. The Real Solution to Poverty
440. Prostitution Insurance
441. How Depressing Was the Depression?
442. What Roosevelt Didn't Know
443. The Great Tug-of-War
444. Due North (institutional economics)
445. Adaptation and the Economy
446. Reforming our Beliefs Concerning Health Care
447. Wonks vs. Revolutionaries: The Biggest Division Within the Democratic Party
448. Two Health Care Documentaries (Washington Times)
449. Should We Trust the Government? good trust, bad trust Bozeman Chronicle version
450. The New Myths About Inequality
451. Myths and Realities of the Bush Presidency
452. The Gospel of Freedom (Call of the Entrepreneur)
453. Debatable Assumptions
454. Universal Distraction
455. The Facebook Generation Gap
456. Understanding the Current Financial Turmoil
457. A Plan for Dealing with Troubled Mortgages
458. Order and Disorder
459. Ending Aging
460. Hindsight Bias
461. Well Treated
462. The Risk Disclosure Problem (Leland Brendsel)
463. Masonomics
464. Race, IQ, and Education
465. Government and Health Care: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
466. The Books of 2007
467. My Global Warming Question
468. The Huckatax: Is it Fair?
469. Politics and Cults
470. Jonah Goldberg's Revisionist F-Bomb
471. When Health Care Gets Personal
472. The Benefits of Hegemony
473. The Humility Factor
474. Mandates for Change
475. Splinter States
476. The Energy Future: Scenarios
477. The Industrious State review of Clark, for Claremont
478. The Universal Spitzer
479. Inequality and Excess
480. Tribe and State (Salzman, Iraq)
481. How to Fix Health Care Delivery (management)
482. The Depressive Realism Economy
483. Fragile by Design (Freddie and Fannie)
484. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae: An Exit Strategy for the Taxpayer
485. Testimonyon Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
486. Unintended Consequences of International Bank Capital Standards
487. Not What They Had in Mind (causes of the financial crisis)
488. Does the Doctor Need a Boss? with Michael Cannon
489. End Medicare, Use Vouchers, and Deregulate Insurance
490. The Non-Debate over Non-Reform
491. How to Get Profitable Again
492. Main Street vs. Wall Street
493. Politicians' Power Dwarfs the Rich
494. The Depressive Realism Economy
495. How to Fix Health Care Delivery
496. The Problem with the Biggest Tax Break in America (health insurance)
497. Regulation and the Financail Crisis: Myths and Realities
498. Inequality and the Sergey Brin Effect
499. Fragile by Design mortgage finance
500. Would Keynes have Supported the Stimulus Bill?