Economics wins the internet today

We win! Only major with TWO panels!!!! W00T!! Every Major's Terrible

Econ 101: Speaking of Monopoly

Here's a video of the TED talk by Rob Reid, founder of the company that created the Rhapsody music service. Reid makes some interesting and funny points, in describing the exciting new field of "copyright math," to destroy the economic arguments of the advocates of intellectual property in music and video (primarily the MPAA and the RIAA, the movie and music industry associations that were such boosters of the SOPA/PIPA legislation). Those of you coming to this page because you're in my micro class will no doubt recognize the simple economic mistakes he makes. These don't negate the basic point he's making: that industry claims about losses resulting from piracy are wildly inflated and/or come from shaky reasoning if not thin air.

Is growth what we want?

I got an email from a participant at the Center for Popular Economics 2011 Summer Institute, which I was fortunate enough to be able to teach. It was, as always a crazy busy, exciting week. The question concerned growth: whether I thought growth was necessary, and how it is related to employment. It's a pretty big question. In economics, the questions don't get much bigger. So I promised to write a blog post to give my answer. And this is that blog post. I will do my best to answer broadly, simply, and, I hope, intelligibly for any audience no matter how much or how little economics they may have been subjected to previously.