All things being equal, letting people make decisions for themselves will produce smarter outcomes, collectively, than relying on government planners.

I tend to delay writing by doing more research - it's really the act of writing the piece that I have the hardest time with.

Discussions of health care in the U.S. usually focus on insurance companies, but, whatever their problems, they're not the main driver of health-care inflation: providers are.

You might think of consumption as a fairly passive activity, but buying new products and services is actually pretty risky, at least if you value your time and money.

Breaking tasks down into smaller sub-tasks can be very useful.

Meeting external deadlines is much harder than meeting internal ones. On the other hand, internal deadlines sometimes don't feel real, and are therefore easy to evade.

A consumer-finance agency is a good thing, but it would do well to teach consumers a simple lesson: if you don't understand the deal you're making, don't make it.