New Item on Obama's To-Do List: Read Bastiat

If Obama had read Bastiat, not only would he be more informed in matters of economics, he also wouldn't have offered this bit of irony during his State of the Union speech:

What incredible irony that Obama gave the specific example of a glazier as a “beneficiary” of the “stimulus plan.” Bastiat would have gotten a kick out of that!

H/T Lew Rockwell, quoting Jeff Papazian.

Broken Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows Vista was broken in many ways. Upgrading to Windows 7, which fixes some of Vista's boneheaded features like UAC, would improve productivity, resulting in more wealth creation for its users (or so I hear; I'm a Mac user).

But to what does the author of this article attribute the new wealth? The (temporary) jobs needed to upgrade millions of computers to Windows 7.

Microsoft Corp. says it won’t be the only one to benefit from sales of its new Windows 7 software. The local economy could see a lift, too.

...Microsoft hired research firm IDC Corp. of Framingham to conduct a study of the ripple effect of the Windows 7 launch. It found that American companies could hire an estimated 25,000 additional workers to cope with the Windows 7 launch, including about 2,500 new jobs in Greater Boston, through the end of 2010.

Jobs are easy to find -- nature creates them for us. It's productivity that matters. Windows 7 should make PC users more productive, which is where the real win comes from.

H/T Wendy McElroy.

Haiti's earthquake; time to celebrate!

Thank goodness Haiti has been leveled because now its people can enjoy a booming economy! Nancy Pelosi, a recent graduate of the school of Broken Window Economics, elaborates:


"I think that this can be an opportunity for a real boom economy in Haiti," she told reporters in the Capitol, drawing from her experience in San Francisco. Haiti "can leap-frog over its past challenges, economically, politically, and demographically in terms of the rich and poor and the rest there, and have a new -- just a new, fresh start," the California Democrat added.


We should all be so lucky as to have our country leveled, think of all the jobs it would create!