Since the sixties, analysts have been using Moore’s Law to summarize the expansion of computing power and, by extension, the growth of information technology as an industry. Named for Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, his “law” can be summarized to state…
It would wise to revisit our assumptions about what computers can and cannot do. Many of us were surprised at the development of computers that could defeat a human at Chess or on the game-show Jeopardy! While those achievements were…
Reading the new book from Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee was like a breath of fresh air. The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, elegantly summarizes the radical economic changes I’ve been trying…
Time has a story on the impact of state and local regulations on market innovators like Tesla, Uber and Airbnb. There’s an opportunity here for Republicans, but it’s an opportunity we are unlikely to seize. From the article: Airbnb, a…
And the disciples asked Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” Being confronted with the suffering of others triggers discomfort in almost any healthy person. That compassionate urge is particularly nagging when the misery…
“[Liberty is] that condition of men in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as is possible in society” F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty A minimum income, Obamacare. Charter schools. Marijuana decriminalization. Cap and trade. These…
Perhaps a single data point can summarize the shape of the world and the challenge before us. Since roughly 1975, the global economy has added more wealth per capita than we created in all of previous human history. The unlocking…
Matthew Yglesias published a good piece this week explaining the economics that drive the expansion of the low-wage service sector. He used Chipotle as an example, explaining how the process of creating a burrito is hard to automate or export,…
Since the day someone invented a mechanical loom 400 years ago, pessimists have been claiming that technology will destroy jobs. The reality is far more complex. Technology destroys jobs while creating others that no one anticipated or imagined. In our…
Imagine a place where government plays a negligible role in public life. Taxes are almost non-existent. Businesses operate free from the burden of regulation or bureaucracy. People lean on each other to establish and enforce standards of public behavior. Imagine…
GOPLifer 