Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳

Prof @ Duke U
Podcast: "The Answer is TC!"
with STL Cards
Retweets mean...nothing
If you disagree, I'm probably wrong

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Clearly, we should raise the sin of envy to the status of a virtue.

Then, at least you'd be virtuous.

[I Dissent @DissentFu]

I am 52 years old. I have been working since I was 15 years old. I have no savings, no retirement, and will never own a home before I die.

And there is now a trillionaire.

[Kyle Saunders @profgoose]

@mungowitz @timurkuran A lot has changed since 1976, friend…

[Jonah Goldberg @JonahDispatch]

So if Musk is “hoarding” money, what would it mean if/when the stock price goes down? The selling window doesn’t start to open until August. So if by then the price drops 25% did he give back that money to everyone else? If he hoarded it, that must mean when he loses it, it goes somewhere. Or maybe they think he’s hoarding naturally occurring electric cars and rockets? Or maybe none of these people understand how wealth creation works.

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Still, @bryan_caplan may be right empirically, locally, though: at the current range, harder may cause fewer enrollments.

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

They are NOT the same issue, though they are related.

There is a "Laffer curve," I expect. If college is far too easy, everyone can get a diploma by mail, so no signal value, so fewer people go.

If too hard, they won't finish, and fewer people go through.

[Bryan Caplan @bryan_caplan]

They're the same issue.

If you make college harder, fewer people will go and fewer still will finish.

If you make it hard in absolute terms, far fewer will go, and almost no one will finish.

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Sartre: "Hell is....OTHER PEOPLE!"

That's like Buchanan and Tullock's notion that being bound by the will of others is an externality, and a negative one at that.

We might vote on choosing a restaurant, but THEN we order different things off the menu!

https://t.co/F9UT4eBKjE

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

That is hilarious, actually.

Econs of the Left, 1976: "Socialism is better than Capitalism for Growth!"

Econs of the Left, 2026: "Socialism is bad for growth, and that's good!"

[Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias]

There was once a that socialism would work better than capitalism. This was mostly wrong and post-1989 it seemed like we'd agree on market economies plus a welfare state.

But an injection of green degrowth has birthed "socialism will wreck the economy — in a good way!"

[Timur Kuran @timurkuran]

Not one European University in the top 20. It’s not for lack of talent. Rather, Europe’s regulations discourage risk taking and entrepreneurship.

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Public Choice: Lunch without romance?

An example of how Public Choice scholars approach "choosing in groups."

https://t.co/F9UT4eBKjE

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Heh....

[Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias]

With $1 trillion in net worth, Musk could give everyone on earth around 125 bucks and thereby solve all problems forever.

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Okay, I don't know much about futbol, fair enough.

But this is hard to watch. Miguel Almiron is a little b*tch, and that flop was ridiculous. Yellow card deserved, sure.

But...US team is likewise taking flops and dives. What do they think, they're in the NBA?

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Nice piece by Scott Scheall, of @uaustinorg

From @AcademicRenewal

[University of Austin (UATX) @uaustinorg]

"Even the loftiest of intentions can be undermined by distorted incentives." — UATX Professor Scott Scheall on the administrative bloat hollowing out American higher ed

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

We all know Public Choice is "politics without romance."

But have you actually THOUGHT about what "romance" is, in that context?

Well, I thought about it, so you don't have to!

The new piece at https://t.co/KUVHaRl4nV....

https://t.co/F9UT4eBKjE

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Here is Chubbz.

https://t.co/1eytkBdbFe

This is EXACTLY how I feel in a coach seat on a long international flight.

And, unfortunately, for pretty much the same reason.

[WeRateDogs @dog_rates]

This is Chubbz. He does have his own bed, just prefers a challenge. 13/10

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Fair point. But if immigrants make "too much" they must be more productive than the alternative.

And the thing people forgot about jobs is that BY DEFINITION each worker produces more value than they take in pay.

Marx said "exploitation."

But it's a NET BENEFIT to society!

[Daniel Di Martino @DanielDiMartino]

@TallRomanStatue If they make too little, they are burdensome, if they make more they're stealing jobs. Circular argument that can never be lost!

[Sam Staley, author @samrstaley]

@mungowitz Agree. Autobiographies rarely dive anywhere close to effective parenting, and they always draw from a sample of one. Can't really infer much from them at all.

Autobiographies can tell you a lot about personal motivations and identify critical pivots and life-story plot points.

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Of course, @paulg is right that "parenting books" are tedious.

But autobiographies are MISLEADING: Many famous people had bad childhoods, which is why they were so driven they became famous.

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Oh, gosh. No.

Suppose someone won the lottery. You read their autobio, about how they chose the ticket number.

Tells you NOTHING.

Reading books about how the famous were "parented" is highly selected, and misleading, sample. Unlikely parenting CAUSED their success.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

Someone asked me to recommend a good book on parenting. I would guess that most books about parenting are tedious. So my recommendation is to read autobiographies, the early parts of which are usually implicitly about parenting.

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

This.

Because once every five years, this must be reminded, and respected.

https://t.co/1NKn139xEf

[Michael Munger 🏖️🔪👨‍🍳 @mungowitz]

Is there a "home ice" advantage in hockey?

And if so, what team has the largest differential, home vs. away?

#Canes!

It's actually not even close, which surprised me.

https://t.co/uxsCjBUzP3