Depressed Metabolism

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In an insightful post on the blog Overcoming Bias, economist (and Alcor member) Robin Hanson argues that proposals to halt stock trading or short selling  during times of crisis are akin to banning bad news:

“The fact that newspapers report a lot less news on this crisis on weekends shows that most crisis news now comes [...]

As Americans increasingly feel the pain of long-distance commuting, economic ignorance of politicians combines with our perceived inalienable right to low gas prices to find a scapegoat in the world’s most hated minority in bad economic times, the speculator.
As the economist and political philosopher Anthony de Jasay recently pointed out, politicians seem to believe that [...]

Economic illiteracy and the human bias to look for a scapegoat conspire to single out speculators in oil futures as the reason for high oil prices.  Exploiting this ignorance about economics, airline executives call on Congress to curb excessive speculation in one of the most blatant examples of corporate socialism in recent history. What is [...]