The Price of the Housing Boom

Yesterday we were driving through what we call the “West Side” of Rockford. This is the place you really wouldn’t like to drive through late at night. This the place where you wouldn’t want to  stray from the main road but just get through as fast as possible. We’ll be driving through there quite often now (it is our new route to church) and so I wanted to make some sort of lesson out of it for the girls. I pointed to the crummy run-down apartments and said that was probably a result of rent control. I explained how making…

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Man, Economy, and State…and Other Ramblings

So yesterday I actually got around to starting “Man, Economy, and State” by Murray Rothbard. I’ve meant to start it for a couple weeks. I wasn’t exactly procrastinating, but just…well, um, I didn’t get to it. It is one of those books you can’t exactly take with you in the car, or read while eating lunch, or read in bed as you drift off to sleep. It is a bit too big for that, at 2 and 1/2 inches thick and 1,438 pages. But I opened it up yesterday, slowly and gently. You know how some movies and songs are…

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Church Moving!

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Our church is moving from North Alpine to Guilford. 6310 Guilford Rd, to be exact. We’re moving into what is (until tomorrow) Shiloh Evangelical Free Church. Then on Friday it will become Grace Reformed Baptist Church. So last night we finished packing and getting everything into the trucks in preparation for Friday. It was really difficult. First of all, the pizza was extremely good. I couldn’t stop eating it. And then there were the Oreo’s…and between standing around doing nothing I was forced to stand around holding a place of delicious little cakes and candies in an attempt to get…

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What Chinese Threat?

Kel Kelly dismisses the myth that we should be afraid of China and that somehow they gain an advantage over us by engaging in the division of labor. Must read article, http://mises.org/daily/4858

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To Gouge or Not to Gouge?

You are probably familiar with the term “price gouging.”  I’m talking today about price gouging in a specific market where demand for a good has suddenly skyrocketed. For instance, after a natural distaster demand for water, food, flashlights, etc…becomes very high. Wikipedia says, “Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to a situation in which a seller prices goods or commodities much higher than is considered reasonable or fair.” Now the obvious problem is, who decides what price is reasonable and fair? But there’s a more fundamental problem than that even. Let’s take an example like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina….

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The Proper Response to Wikileaks

Let’s not overreact and seek to kill the whistleblower, but one has to wonder what side he’s on…as some have pointed out, the leaked materials are a dream come true for neo-cons…so who is behind it all? http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski259.html

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What’s New?

So you’ve probably noticed some slight changes on the site. I’ve decided to switch my focus from teaching an online class to online tutoring. Why? This is the way of the free market. I’ve concluded that perhaps teaching a full semester of economics may be too daunting for some and the time commitment too great. If you sign up for it before December 13th, I may still teach it, but with such a small group as I have right now, it really isn’t worth the work I’ll have to put into it. So what’s this online tutoring all about? Instead of expecting…

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A Sunday Afternoon Adventure

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I promised my friends that I would make this into a blog post, so we’ll see how I do… Our church in Rockford is starting a church plant on the south side of Chicago, around Tinley Park, to be exact. So yesterday I was generously given a ride there by my pastor’s family. When we reached the residential area of Tinley Park the boys in the back began shouting, “Christmas lights!! I see Christmas lights!!” in a very loud voice. And then…”Christmas lights!! I see Christmas–I see a family eating dinner! With spiked hair!” I assume that it was the…

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Our Nice Local Library

I use this title in two senses. Firstly, I used to really like our local library. It was close. The people were friendly. There were good books. The second sense is a sarcastic sense because you are about to find out it isn’t so nice anymore. What isn’t nice about it? 1) They have so many people working there that it isn’t like coming in to a friendly and familiar face. Often it is someone I don’t know at all. Sometimes they are friendly, and other times they aren’t. Maybe it is just because they are busy. Or the guilt…

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