Why I like David Warsh and Economic Principals

Dependable time and stable money are among government’s most fundamental responsibilities. Changing the calendar periodically to suit lobbying interests and bureaucratic enthusiasms is a bad idea.

Meanwhile, outrage at the government’s determination to favor the new fluorescent light bulbs by imposing efficiency standards on the old incandescent ones is one of the few concerns I share with the Tea Party. “It makes me want to explode,” says my friend, the critic Katherine A. Powers. Washington should repeal George W. Bush’s mandate and let the price system do its work.

But – and it is a big but – despite the fact that government occasionally steps on my toes, I am pretty certain that the mixed economy is here to stay, and that effective government is therefore as important to modern life as is a proper appreciation of the superiority of markets to other forms of organization for the provision of most goods and services.

A Big But