Miscellaneous ("non-professional") writings of mine (mostly on finance & economics):

Published (somewhere other than here):

• Will The Real Inflation Please Stand Up? - Looking at the official CPI inflation metric versus money quantity (in the form of M1), comparing them with another set of US government numbers as a truth test: the US first-class postage rate.
• What (Really) Happened in 1995? (How the Greenspan Fed Screwed Up in the Mid-90s and set the stage for the Greatest Financial Bubble in the History of the World) - Tackling the mystery of run-away money growth since the mid-90s, and looking at its impact on the US and much of the rest of the world.

Unpublished (except here!):

• The Trade Deficit: Worth Worrying About - A response to standard "capital surplus" arguments (delivered by Cafe Hayek's Don Boudreaux) that the trade deficit is not a bad thing. My point is that in the extreme form (as we have now), trade deficits are quite trivially and observably bad. I am told this article was "narrowly rejected" for publication by TCSDaily, for non-editorial reasons.
• U.S. Health Care: Addicted To The Thing That's Killing Us (pdf) - Explains how the employer-based nature of the U.S. health care system is the culprit for its failing state. Also points out that fully-operational Health Savings Accounts could fix the problem.
• Why Quantitative Prediction of the Stock Market Fails (pdf) - Illustrates how the naive and often insidious "quantitative prediction" of the stock market is based on flawed mathematical assumptions; the market actually behaves like a random fractal. (I recommend the pdf for now; the images are broken in the HTML).
• The Illegal Immigration Problem is a Tax Problem (pdf) - A new take on both the illegal immigration issue and tax reform. I connect the two and show that the current tax structure has created the former phenomenon, and is damaging the domestic labor market.
• Problems with the Patriot Act - General commentary and resource for problems with the PATRIOT act. Also includes a little analysis of mine connecting Rove and Plamegate to culpability under the Act (which seems to have turned out somewhat prophetic).
• The Worst Fourth of July Holiday Ever (pdf) - Account of how I was arrested and jailed because of horrible neo-prohibitionist laws and for standing up for my civil liberties.
• Social Security: Myths and Facts (pdf) - A thorough debunking of any support for the style of "social security" program we have now in the U.S. Written back when Bush still had some political capital, and so the issue of SS reform was very prominent.
• Economic Observations of the Far East (pdf) - Written up after I visited three countries in Asia during December, 2004.
• Why it is Foolish to Treat Good Poeple Badly (pdf) - A general socio-economic essay on the effects of punishing good people. Has very broad implications.
• Fifteen Car Salesman Tactics to Beware of - Written after I spent a month car shopping. Especially useful for first-time car buyers, I think.