Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
I highly recommend Carl from Chicago’s posts on these issues at the Life in the Great Midwest blog. Carl’s posts are easily accessible via the category list on his blog’s left sidebar (click on Economics, Electricity, Social Security or Taxes to start).
Carl’s latest post, on the economics and politics of electric-power infrastructure in Illinois, is here.
In a meeting with environmentalists, Elizabeth Edwards talked about the importance of buying locally-produced foods:
“We’ve been moving back to ‘buy local,'” Mrs. Edwards said, outlining a trade policy that “acknowledges the carbon footprint” of transporting fruit.
“I live in North Carolina. I’ll probably never eat a tangerine again,” she said, speaking of a time when the fruit is reaches the price that it “needs” to be.
Being the kind and considerate person that I am, I don’t want the Edwards family to unnecessarily forego the pleasures of tangerine-eating. Therefore, I’ll try to help them out by calculating a vital economic and environmental parameter which shall be known as tangerines per gallon.
This is a very rough and preliminary analysis; tangerine experts and transportation experts are invited to chime in with more data.
Via the Ludwig von Mises Institute comes a quite good cartoon version of Hayek’s classic.
Here’s a sample image:
In a previous post, I discussed how obesity levels might just be an indicator of increasing wealth.
The headline of a recent news item reads “30 Percent of Cubans Are Overweight”. Since Cuba is hardly known as a garden spot so far as economic vigor is concerned, this is a pretty good sign that I might be wrong about how more wealth equals larger waistlines.
The author of the news article states that Cubans average over 3,000 calories a day, 30% of which is subsidized rations provided by Castro’s government. Healthy food such as fresh vegetables are prohibitively expensive, and the diet tends towards fried starches and fatty meat.
It could be that food production technology has just gotten so efficient that obesity is in the reach of just about everyone. Except, apparently, for the North Koreans.