Donald B. Hawthorne

California Dreamin’ – Celebrating Fond Memories of Los Angeles & the San Francisco Bay Area

By Donald B. Hawthorne | July 1, 2006 |

Business travel last week took me to Los Angeles for the first time in years. My flight landed past midnight and I immediately turned on KLOS 95.5 FM (more here) after getting into the rental car – only to hear Jim Ladd was the disc jockey: [Ladd]…is the last remaining freeform rock DJ in United…

Happy Father’s Day!

By Donald B. Hawthorne | June 18, 2006 | Comments Off on Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there! I am fortunate to have a great Dad, about whom I wrote this last year. He is still going strong one year later. Happy Father’s Day, Dad! National Review Online has several interesting articles on the role of fathers: Indispensable: Fathers and their day The Father…

Economic Thoughts, Part XVII: What Does “Social Justice” Mean?

By Donald B. Hawthorne | June 7, 2006 |

This posting is Part XVII in a series of postings about economic thoughts. The study of economics is important because economic truths directly influence outcomes in our society. People of good will want our society to be a just one. What constitutes a just society? That question is far too broad for any single posting.…

Economic Thoughts, Part XVI: The Ethics of Redistribution

By Donald B. Hawthorne | June 6, 2006 |

This posting is Part XVI in a series of postings about economic thoughts. Robert Nisbet once said: “Only Hayek has rivaled Bertrand de Jouvenel in demonstrating why redistributionism in the democracies inexorably results in the atrophy of personal responsibility and the hypertrophy of bureaucracy and the centralized state instead of in relief to the hapless…

Thoughts on the Law & Social Order

By Donald B. Hawthorne | June 5, 2006 |

As a child, did you ever make up a new game and spend time trying to define the rules of that game? If so, did you ever end up fighting with your friends because, after you started playing the game, something unplanned happened and conflict broke out? After the conflict broke out, did you find…

Economic Thoughts, Part XV: Consequences of Price Controls

By Donald B. Hawthorne | June 5, 2006 |

This posting is Part XV in a series of postings about economic thoughts. The excerpts in this posting are taken from Thomas Sowell’s book Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy and addresses the many consequences of price controls – both ceilings and floors: To understand the effects of price controls, it is necessary…

Economic Thoughts, Part XIV: On Equality

By Donald B. Hawthorne | June 3, 2006 |

This posting is Part XIV in a series of postings about economic thoughts. Milton and Rose Friedman, in Chapter 5 of their 1979 book, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, discuss the issue of equality: …In the early decades of the Republic, equality meant equality before God; liberty meant liberty to shape one’s own life.…

Economic Thoughts, Part XIII: It is Individuals – Not the Society, Government or Market – Who Think and Act

By Donald B. Hawthorne | June 2, 2006 |

This posting is Part XIII in a series of postings about economic thoughts. Professor Don Boudreaux of George Mason University, who hails from New Orleans, recently published an article entitled Triumph of the Individual at Tech Central Station in which he discusses Nobel Laureate Friederich Hayek’s contribution to our understanding about how it is individuals…

Economic Thoughts, Part XII: I, Pencil – A Story about the Free Market at Work

By Donald B. Hawthorne | June 1, 2006 |

This posting is Part XII in a series of postings about economic thoughts. Years ago, Leonard E. Read of the Foundation for Economic Education wrote a now-famous story entitled I, Pencil. The story describes how, in the production of something as simple as a pencil, the free market naturally brings together many different physical materials…

Economic Thoughts, Part XI: Prices

By Donald B. Hawthorne | May 31, 2006 |

This posting is Part XI in a series of postings about economic thoughts. The excerpts in this posting are taken from Chapter 3 in Thomas Sowell’s book Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy and discusses prices, a key structural element in a competitive capitalistic economy. Prices play a crucial role in determining how…