Quote Our Professors :

"In a modern democracy, not only can a libertarian be elitist; a libertarian has to be elitist. To be a libertarian in a modern democracy is to say that nearly 300 million Americans are wrong, and a handful of  nay-sayers are right." 
-Bryan Caplan

Econ Social Hour Tonight !

When : Mon, November 4, 8pm – 10pm

Where: The Rathskeller

Join us for our weekly social at Mason's sports bar on campus. Stop by to hang out after classes and maybe even talk some econ.

See you tonight!

GMU Undergraduate Contribution by James Anderson :

Free Trade, the Sugar Industry, and American Obesity is an article written by Undergraduate Economics student James Anderson, discussing intervention on the sugar industry that ultimately results in American Obesity.

Clip :

"With the intention of protecting American jobs and decreasing competition on domestic industries, protectionist policies took large effect under the Navigation Act. Such policies have unintentionally decreased innovation and increased prices on American consumers. How? The effects of these policies have stifled competition..."

Read James Anderson's full article :
 under "GMU Undergraduate Contributions" Tab (Above).

About James Anderson:
19 year old, James Anderson, is pursuing a BS in Economics at George Mason University.

Join Econ Society Today: for our first Graduate Student Lecture featuring Abigail Hall :

Abigail Hall's lecture will feature her work concerning the political economy of unmanned aerial vehicles colloquially known as drones. 
Find out more about her work at http://www.abigailrhall.com/

When :   Monday October 28th 

Where:   Johnson Center Room 325

Time:     4:00 - 5:30 pm Lecture

   Afterwards Social Hour at The Rathskeller

See you this afternoon!

Quotes we live by: Past Lecture Special

In the Ed Crane Liberty Lecture Event hosted by GMU Econ Society and the Future of Freedom Foundation:

 

Ed Crane covered many areas in his lecture, one of which: discussed the way in which wealthy individuals such as Gate and Buffet, spend large sums of their money in hopes of healing poverty. Poverty however, is not healed through the act of giving. Ed Crane argued the cure as- wealth creation:

“...I had this argument with Bill Gates. Of course you want to spend all this money to help people right now, but wouldn’t it worth while for people of your means to spend more time talking about the institutions that create a society where these pathologies go away? ...and in doing so get rid of all this nonsense. We know what the answer is. The issue is not what causes poverty. Poverty is mans natural state. The issue is what causes wealth creation? There's so little in this world devoted to explaining reasons why people create wealth, and we don’t give enough attention to that.”  

 -Ed Crane in GMU Econ Society Liberty Lecture Series on Oct 24, 2013

Come Join Us Tonight for our Liberty Lecture Series :

Ed Crane:the founder and president emeritus of the Cato Institute.

This is the second installment of the Economic Liberty Lecture Series this semester featuring Ed Crane on:
"The Myth of Economcs: They Changed Global Warming to Climate Change, Why not Economics to Economic Change?"

When: Thursday, October 24th 

Where: Johnson Center 3rd Floor, Room D

Time: 5:30 pm Pizza

              6:00 pm Lecture

          7:00 pm Q&A

See you tonight!

GMU's Very Own: Abdullah B. Khurram was published in PoliTact

Pakistan Needs A Diverse View Towards Foreign Policy

September 23, 2013  |By Abdullah B. Khurram

Many analysts from Pakistan demonstrate their resentment towards the United States by cultivating a public opinion in favor of a “Pivot to Asia”, i.e., shift of strategic focus from the United States to China. Whether this external pivot is good or bad for Pakistan is a matter of a separate discussion, but the focus of this article is to demonstrate a need for an internal pivot, i.e., a need for change in the way foreign policy is approached in Islamabad.

 

Now the question arises, what constitutes an internal pivot? And, why is there a need for it? To answer these questions, we first need to analyze the narratives that currently form the basis of Pakistan’s foreign policy and public opinion.

Firstly, Pakistan’s foreign policy tends to be somewhat influenced by a Cold-War era ‘either/or’ narrative, i.e., choosing between either country A or country B. Foreign policy today is rather governed by creating interest hierarchies; two countries can cooperate, yet disagree with each other at the same time. This requires creating levels of cooperation and levels of disagreement, which should be reviewed and altered with time and national interest needs. This problem might be slowly diminishing in the bureaucratic circles of Islamabad, but it remains prevalent in how the public and media perceive foreign policy. 

This has resulted in a far-from-balanced thought process in which the benefits of trade with China are overestimated, despite the obvious economic disadvantages for Pakistan. As a result of such an approach, Pakistan has transformed from a ‘Strong Ally’ to a ‘Frenemy’ of the US. And, this has proven to be quite advantageous for the Chinese. China will benefit greatly from acquiring the strategic Gwadar port, and other mining rights in other parts of the country, without paying the premium prices.

Secondly, foreign policy is not a zero-sum game. India’s gain is not necessarily Pakistan’s loss and Pakistan’s gain is not automatically a loss for India. There can be situations which are completely win-win, or circumstance that are entirely lose-lose. There can also be scenarios where one country benefits more than the other. Consider the recent proposal by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, demanding Syria to handover its chemical weapons to the international community.

The agreement appears to be a greater win for Russia who came out looking like a savior and protector of international norms, and opposed to a military solution. However, it is also a win for the United States, which was able to get the Russians to act as a guarantor for Syria. The agreement with Russia also helped US avoid military strikes against Syria in the face of increasingly war weary allies and strong public and Congressional resistance.

 

Third point to consider is that economics supersedes ideologies. Many in Pakistan are proud of having good relations with their fellow Muslim nations but fail to see what actually strengthen ties is economics. The trade between India and Saudi Arabia alone is greater than the size of Pakistan’s trade with the entire Gulf region.

Majority of the states Pakistan has friendly relations with conduct more trade with India than Pakistan. Understandably, some of this is simply due to the larger size of India. At the same time, it is not to suggest that these countries will also politically support India over Pakistan. However, it does imply that trade is an important factor in establishing ties.

Economic factors are also at the center of US-China ties. No matter how much the ties improve or deteriorate at the political level, the economic stakes continue to have a calming influence on the entirety of the bilateral relation between the two. Similarly, if the economic dimension of the US-Pakistan ties were more developed, it would have a stabilizing impact.

Giving ideologies more preference over economics has not been beneficial for Pakistan. To quote one example, Iranian authorities killed six Pakistanis less than 2 months after the Salala incident in which the NATO (mistakenly) killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. While Pakistan rightly took a strong stance on the Salala incident, but it failed to even bring the Iranian killings to the mainstream media. In a similar manner, Pakistan has also never raised the issue of unfair treatment of its labor force with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. Apparently, mistakes made by Muslim states are treated differently than those made by non-Muslim ones. Such posturing has obviously damaged Pakistan’s ties with western nations.

Concluding the argument, foreign policy can neither be viewed in an ‘either/or’ perspective, nor is it a zero-sum game. Bilateral relations that thrive on the basis of economics are much more stable than those based simply on short-term political considerations. 

Pakistan needs to diversify its geo-strategic possibilities and has the ability to improve relations with all three, US, China and Russia at the same time. For a country with a strategic location on the map, external pivot might be an option, but an internal pivot is a necessity.

Abdullah B. Khurram is a Research Associate at the Middle East Institute, Washington D.C.

Link to PoliTact article: http://politact.com/opinions/pakistan-needs-a-diverse-view-towards-foreign-policy.html

Mason's Professor Pete Boettke Featured On Reason

Professor Boettke shows his austrian view of economics and how it is a "pair of eyeglasses" in which to view the world. In true Austrian and Mason fashion he goes over the idea that the unit of analysis is the individual and how we can break issues in the greater down with this.

Later in the video he talks about the Financial Crisis and how the recession is the correction for the malinvestment in prior time periods. This is a good video to show one perspective on the financial crisis. We are proud to have Professor Boettke teaching us economics at George Mason University and you can find more of his work at his personal website and blog Coordination Problem.

Conditions of a Free Society Essay Competition

The Douglas B. Rogers Conditions of a Free Society Essay Competition :
-For full-time undergraduate students
-The competition encourages discussions on individual freedom, limited constitutional government, free market economics, and the philosophical and moral foundations of America and the West.
More about: Conditions for a Free Society Essay Competition

Winners of Free Society Essay Competition :
-First Place Winner Prize:  $2,000 and an invitation to attend an awards dinner and lecture by New York Times best-selling author Peter Schweizer
-Second and Third Place Winner Prize: invitations to said awards dinner and $1,000 and $500
More about: Past Winners

About Douglas B. Rogers: 

Douglas Rogers was a PhD student at George Mason University.

 He was awarded the Israel M. Kirzner Award for Outstanding Dissertation in Austrian Economics. His work affiliations include Foundation for Economic Education, the Koch Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, The Freeman, and the Cato Institute. 

Find out More About: Douglas B. Rogers PhD

GMU Econ Society recognizes :

Today's Nobel Prize winners in Economics! 

The winners of October 14, 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel goes to : 
 
Eugene Fama: Professor to the University of Chicago is widely recognized as the "Father of Modern Finance."

Lars Peter Hansen: Professor of University of Chicago is recognized for his recent research Examining Macroeconomics Through the Lens of Asset Pricing.

Robert J. Shiller: a Professor of Yale University and writer of Finance and the Good Society.


This years Prize in Economics Science honors empirical findings on the price movements on assets such as stocks and bonds.

James M. Buchanan Libertarian Socialist?

Why yes it is true, Mason's own James Buchanan was a "libertarian socialist" and found his way during  one of Frank Knight's University of Chicago economics courses. Today we celebrate his birthday and his legacy of studying "politics without romance" in grave contradiction to his youthful views of libertarian socialism. We can only hope to attract and convert more bright minds to the field of Public Choice and continue the tradition started by Buchanan.

Knowledge of his "libertarian socialism" comes from The Library of Economics and Liberty