Chris Freiman
@cafreiman
Professor, John Chambers College of Business and Economics at WVU | Libertarianism, neoliberalism, effective altruism
274 Following 37.8K Followers
Restrictions on immigrant labor are restrictions on the free market.
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If you were an enthusiastic supporter of Graham Platner like Robinson was, you should probably refrain from giving Democrats campaign advice.
Although I have to say, this is also Jackson's fault. They can only tell you what to do if you let them. The candidate is ultimately responsible for their own campaign.
Capitalism is good for workers.
$200,000 to manage an In-N-Out, nearly 4x the national average for fast food joints.
The burger chain confirms its store managers earn on average more than $200,000 annually.
Restaurant data puts the average fast-food manager salary at roughly $59,811, a big drop from the famous burger spot.
In-N-Out says the eye-popping pay isn't an accident. It's part of a decades-old philosophy established by founders Harry and Esther Snyder to treat associates "like family" and offer higher-than-normal wages.
Read how that philosophy continues to shape the company today:
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The personal property/private property distinction doesn’t really hold up. For instance, if you own your car, you have the right to rent it to someone who will use it to give rides to paying customers. But now your personal property has become private property, which communism prohibits.
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Personal property is things like your house, your underwear, your car. We want you to have personal property under communism
Private property is things like factories, utility companies, natural resources, the means of production; and those things should be owned by all
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A WIP caller compared Jalen Hurts' progression to Luke Skywalker becoming a Jedi Knight:
"Luke was an up-and-comer, but he had Han Solo, Chewbacca, a team around him... By the time he went to Jabba's cave with that hoodie on, he was the man."
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There’s no conflict between the view that entrepreneurs are entitled to their wealth and that babies should have food—in fact, societies that enable entrepreneurs to get rich via positive-sum market activity have well-fed populations.
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Interesting stuff. An underrated point is that increased wealth can create new competitions that create new opportunities to acquire positional goods (for instance, rich societies enable their members gain status by winning Scrabble tournaments or the CrossFit Games).
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The US labor share is at all time lows, but real wages are going up. So are things going well or not? It depends on whether people care more about consumption of the goods the economy produces, versus positional goods (that depend on relative status).
We wrote a one-page paper, keeping it as simple as possible, w/ @mireiagine.
Link to paper (although the whole paper fits in one image):
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I’m not sure it’s true that “a lot” of her critics believe this; in any case, there is a big difference between the claim that “the only morality you should follow is pure self-interest” and “you should read to your kids even if it gives them an educational advantage.”
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turns out a lot of Nikole Hannah-Jones' critics genuinely believe that the only morality you should follow is pure self-interest
“Aren’t you bothered by the counterintuitive implications of your view?”
Effective altruists:
From *Why It’s OK to Ignore Politics*:
People move too quickly from “sports betting often has bad consequences” to “make sports betting illegal.” Plenty of activities that should be legal often have bad consequences.
"Just legalize sports betting, who cares" was one of the most wrong opinions I've ever had. We need a draconian snapback where it becomes something you can exclusively do in-person in Vegas and maybe at a racetrack in Atlantic City.
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Defenders of Social Security need to decide whether it’s meant to function as a personal retirement plan or redistribution.
A teacher earning $60,000 pays Social Security taxes on every dollar she earns.
A worker earning $184,500 does too.
But someone earning $10 million pays tax on just the first $184,500.
That doesn’t make sense. We can protect Social Security if everyone paid their fair share.
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Why shouldn't you live on the global mean income just because you are American?
There is something borderline totalitarian about the idea that no part of cultural life should be allowed to remain free of politics.
"She-Hulk" star Tatiana Maslany disses Tom Selleck (while mocking "Magnum, PI") & Michael Jordan for saying they avoid politics to keep their audience/customers happy:
"Everything is political. All entertainment is political... It's such a bizarre mentality. It's so cowardly."
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It’s hard for me to keep track of the narrative: Did libertarianism lose in the marketplace of ideas or has the intellectual influence of Milton Friedman destroyed America?
libertarians lost in the marketplace of ideas
It’s true that crony capitalism is actually existing capitalism; however, authoritarian socialism is actually existing socialism and it’s far worse than crony capitalism.
A problem for socialism is that government programs survive even when they’re badly run.
This from Zohran is excellent. And efficiency is a good socialist value. Badly run programs burn state money that could've served better ends. Capitalism wastes resources/time too (health insurance middle men, cheap labor sweated out around the world).
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Milton Friedman: “A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it…gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”
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