Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

Education is the key to the future: You've heard it a million times, and it's not wrong. Educated people have higher wages and lower unemployment rates, and better-educated countries grow faster and innovate more than other countries. But going to college is not enough. You also have to study the right subjects.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

Today it is evident that we have two political parties: the Tax and Spenders and the No-Tax and Spenders. Neither party is fiscally conservative. Is there no room at the inn for an honest conservative? A conservative who makes the case for smaller government on its merits and not just as the fallback option when fiscal bankruptcy threatens?

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

The only way to thrive is to innovate. It's that simple.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

America has the highest standard of living of any major country in the entire world. To maintain and enhance that standard of living, America should continue to embrace those qualities which have made America great: openness and dynamism. Openness to new technologies, new ideas and new people is America's greatest source of strength.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

I think modern television shows, with their intricate plots, are stimulating our minds. This is one reason IQs have been going up.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

Going to college is neither necessary nor sufficient to be well-educated.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

More retirees, longer life expectancy, larger benefits, and fewer workers - these trends have meant substantial increases in the payroll tax. Since the social security program began, the payroll tax has increased more than 500 percent.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

Well-roundedness comes not from sitting in a classroom but from experiencing the larger world.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

The term 'natural resources' confuses people. 'Natural resources' are not like a finite number of gifts under the Christmas tree. Nature is given, but resources are created.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

Hollywood wants its heroes to be virtuous, but it defines virtue in a way that excludes any action that is self-interested. If virtue means putting others ahead of self, then it's clear that most people, let alone most capitalists, aren't very virtuous.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

I utterly reject the view that the Third World is doomed to poverty and starvation. Not only is this wrong, I think this attitude verges on the immoral, like thinking that slavery is an unalterable facet of the human condition so why bother doing anything about it?

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

Like many works of literature, Hollywood chooses for its villains people who strive for social dominance through the pursuit of wealth, prestige, and power. But the ordinary business of capitalism is much more egalitarian: It's about finding meaning and enjoyment in work and production.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

A lot of people say that India has been held back by its democracy. But let's remember that, despite being a poor country, India's democracy meant that its government never let millions of people starve.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

Democracy is an experimental system. I like it when states try out new ideas. I think we ought to expand, not contract, our federalist system.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

The first thing you learn when you're blogging is that people are one click away from leaving you. So you've got to get to the point, you can't waste people's time, you've got to give them some value for their limited attention span.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

Writing on the blog, you want to get attention and make strong claims. In academic work, that often doesn't pay, so sometimes it's a little bit difficult going back and forth to navigate these differences.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

Television is much more complex, brain-challenging and involved than it used to be. It's almost impossible to watch a television show from 15 years ago; it's just too boring. I think modern television shows, with their intricate plots, are stimulating our minds. This is one reason IQs have been going up.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

People get used to more complex forms of entertainment, and they become bored by simpler forms. Television has become more complex in order to feed our demand.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

Our obsessive focus on college schooling has blinded us to basic truths. College is a place, not a magic formula. It matters what subjects students study, and subsidies should focus on the subjects that matter the most - not to the students, but to everyone else.

Alex Tabarrok
Alex Tabarrok

People used to think that more population was bad for growth. In this view, people are stomachs - they eat, leaving less for everyone else. But once we realize the importance of ideas in the economy, people become brain - they innovate, creating more for everyone else.