Quick Roundup 107

Good Reading

Thanks to Grant Jones, who recommended Lloyd Billingsly's Hollywood Party and Joe Kellard, who mentioned Journals of Ayn Rand, I have some good reading ahead of me in the near future. If the web site of the Ayn Rand Bookstore ever comes back up, I'll order Ayn Rand's Marginalia, too.

In the meantime, I eagerly await the current issue of The Objective Standard. Houston's two-week-long autumn should arrive any day now and I look forward to sitting outside with an ice cold brewski and the 'Standard while I do some grilling. Which reminds me....

Good Beer

I attended the monthly meeting of my home brewing club yesterday evening and was very impressed with the samples of Schneider's Aventinus Weizenstarkbier and an Eisbier by the same brewery. Both had complex and, frankly, fascinating flavors. My wife was with me. She's not a beer drinker and she raved about it. She made sure we took the bottle cap of the Weizenstarkbier home with us so we could remember it for later. Strongly recommended.

Opportunity Costs

I have been thinking about this subject from several angles lately. So I was intrigued when I stopped by Noumenal Self this morning and found this very good link on the subject in his side bar. Bad Analysis discusses the notion that the medical sector is "propping up the economy":

The basic flaw in this logic is a lack of accounting for opportunity costs, highlighted in the parable of the broken window. The parable basically explains that, even though you breaking your window provides work for the glazier, which means the glazier has money to spend with the baker, and so on, this doesn't mean we should go around breaking windows to support the economy. What is missing from the broken window analysis is opportunity costs, or what you would have spent the money on if you hadn't broken window.

If we weren't so inefficient in health care, it's likely that people would spend their money on other things, and we wouldn't need health care spending to "prop up the economy".

As the next presidential race approaches, I am afraid that we will be hearing all sorts of stupid proposals on "health care" as those who would enslave physicians like to call medicine. Those who favor capitalism in medicine would do well to remember that the invisibility of opportunity costs will require that we point them out frequently. You can read Bastiat's original parable here.

-- CAV