More retirees, longer life expectancy, larger benefits, and fewer workers - these trends have meant substantial increases in the payroll tax. Since the social security program began, the payroll tax has increased more than 500 percent.

Patents are like fertilizer. Applied wisely and sparingly, they can increase growth. But if you apply too many chemicals, or make patents too strong, then you can leach the land, making growth more difficult.

Writing on the blog, you want to get attention and make strong claims. In academic work, that often doesn't pay, so sometimes it's a little bit difficult going back and forth to navigate these differences.

Conservatives have long argued, correctly, that 'fine-tuning' the economy is a chimera, but that argument seems to have disappeared from the conservative handbook.

It would be really great if I discovered a cure for cancer, but it would only be a little bit less great if my neighbor did. So I am pretty happy when my neighbor becomes wealthier, better educated and more innovative. I feel the same about China and India.

I utterly reject the view that the Third World is doomed to poverty and starvation. Not only is this wrong, I think this attitude verges on the immoral, like thinking that slavery is an unalterable facet of the human condition so why bother doing anything about it?

It seems to me that the price of eternal vigilance is liberty.