Assault of Thoughts: 12/10/2012

"Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking" - JMK

- Nancy Folbre discusses a point she makes a lot: the positive externalities associated with child care. This is something I hope to explore more in the spring in my Gender Macro class paper. I expect to be reading a lot more of Folbre.

- James Heckman on the costs involuntarily imposed on some people as an accident of birth.

- The estimable Gene Callahan on the importance of Say's Law to macroeconomics. One of my comments got trapped in the abyss (perhaps as retribution for this post), but my point was basically that Keynesians, like the Rothbardians Gene describes, of course think everything adjusts to equilibrium too. The difference is we do not think it is always going to be in favor of pleasant increases in investment to meet the increase in savings. It's quite possible much of the adjustment could take place in output - an output level reduced to the point that desired savings out of that lowered output is equal to investment.

- Richard Posner ridicules one liberal's idea that there are many equally legitimate Constitutions. Nothing reassures me that I'm an independent thinker more than my oscillating objection to things I hear liberals say about fundamental constitutional questions and things I hear conservatives/libertarians say about fundamental constitutional questions.