Quotes of the day

If you can't sell 'em, rent 'em.--agent Paul Larson of Coldwell Banker Burnet, via Mark Perry

... our own regulatory ingenuity ...somehow or other, always manages to backfire.--Richard Epstein

Bernanke's change of mind reflects his shy personality plus groupthink.--Bryan Caplan

Many mediocre minds are impressed by famous colleagues, graduate degrees, Harvard, or equations. Those people aren't worth impressing. While such signals are correlated with good ideas, they are neither necessary nor sufficient for a good idea. When someone emphasizes these signals, however, that should lower their credibility among thoughtful people because it suggests bad faith, a preference towards pretentious irrelevancies. I've seen this a lot, hiding behind equations. It often works because one does not want to sit down, understand what all the variables mean and how they are measured, etc. I just don't feel impressed at all by such equations because my Bayesian prior is they merely have a bad idea in equation form, so I don't give them the benefit of the doubt even when I'm lazy and have not enough time to evaluate their math.--Eric Falkenstein

We’ve seen from Republicans in–particularly Republicans in the House, but with Republicans generally, that they don’t want to be part of any plan that raises taxes at all. The president’s budget has $1 of revenue for every $2 1/2 of spending cuts.--Jack Lew, White House Chief of Staff and former Budget Director

Contrary to Mr. Lew’s assertion, the President is proposing at least $1.20 of tax increases for every dollar of proposed spending cuts. The President’s budget locks in historically high spending levels and relies more on tax increases than spending cuts for the limited deficit reduction it proposes.--Keith Hennessey

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