a scratch pad for half-formed thoughts by a liberal political junkie who's nobody special. ''Hard Heads, Soft Hearts'' is the title of a book by Princeton economist Alan Blinder, and tends to be a favorite motto of neoliberals, especially liberal economists.
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Thinking about Josh Marshall's post about rent-seeking & the public option, and his link to the Wikipedia page,

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/bottom_line_on_public_option.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

I think my core complaint with mainstream economics is that there seems to be a careless, unspoken assumption that

1) Rent-seeking usually occurs because of too much government, and not too little.

2) The main problem with rent-seeking is in the seeking of rent, and not in the rent itself, and its distribution.

I first started thinking on these George-ist type issues after reading this article by by Dan Sullivan, via someone in the comments on Dean Baker's blog:

"Are you a Real Libertarian, or a ROYAL Libertarian?"

http://geolib.pair.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html


Two more Deep Thoughts:

When a large portion of the nation's elite adopts the mindset "make my pile quickly and retire early", bad things happen.

Orwell: "It is easier — even quicker, once you have the habit — to say `In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that' than to say `I think'."
posted by Anonymous at 7:07 PM