昨晚临睡前忽然读到子旸的“何处再觅此乐趣”，勾起许多回忆。时间过得真快。
我自己读经济学，摸索的时间比较长，快感没有那么密集，但经过是相似的。我的启蒙书是萨缪尔森的《经济学》，先读中文的三卷本，后读从香港买来的英文版，再读一次中文版，这样就读了三遍。差不多同期，埋头读波普尔的《开放社会及其敌人》，读的是英文，从图书馆借出来复印的，两页一面，用做帐本的蓝色硬皮装订。萨缪尔森加波普尔，结果就是个凯恩斯主义者。没错，我是从信奉干预经济学开始的。
后来是海耶克、弗里德曼、张五常、布坎南、塔洛克和瓦格纳。
想起一张照片，标题应该叫“与布坎南教授早读”。那个清早，漫天风雪，到了教室，才知道学校停课两小时。已经到了的，就与布坎南教授一起早读，消磨这两个小时。静悄悄，暖洋洋，身边的Isaac忽然提醒我，说这一刻真美！
大规模的排队，如中国的春运，是学习价格理论和研究公共政策的优良范本，值得每一位对经济、舆论、政策等领域感兴趣的朋友深思。本站以明快的方式回答各种常见问题，包括：（1）回家过年是不是刚性需求；（2）车票提价有没有增加乘客负担；（3）黄牛党有没有责任；（4）垄断产业的产品涨价合理吗；（5）春运难题与铁路垄断的关系；（6）火车票低价造成的浪费在哪里；（7）应该如何有效地帮助穷人；（8）租和寻租的经济学概念；（9）关于排队的理论文献等。欢迎浏览！
科斯（Ronald H. Coase）：“我被反垄断法烦透了。假如价格涨了，法官就说是‘垄断定价’；价格跌了，就说是‘掠夺定价’；价格不变，就说是‘勾结定价’”。(Ronald Coase said he had gotten tired of anti-trust because when the prices went up the judges said it was monopoly, when the prices went down they said it was predatory pricing, and when they stayed the same they said it was tacit collusion. — Source: William Landes, “The Fire of Truth: A Remembrance of Law and Econ at Chicago”, JLE (1981)) 详见这里和这里。
布坎南（James M. Buchanan）：需求量和价格之间的反向关系，是经济科学的核心命题，它体现了这样的预设，即人类的选择行为足够理性，以致是可以预测的。没有一个物理学家会说“水往上流”，也没有一个自重的经济学家会说“提高最低工资可以增加就业”。这种说法，要是认真地生发下去，将无异于全盘否定了经济学，使其科学含义荡然无存；要是这样，经济学家除了撰写迎合意识形态偏好的文章，就别无可为了。值得庆幸的是，只有一小撮经济学家愿意背弃两个世纪的经济学教诲；我们尚未堕落成一群随营的娼妓（详见这里）。
Gary Becker: The claim that the crisis was due to an insufficient level of regulation is not convincing. For example, commercial banks have been more regulated than most other financial institutions, yet commercial banks performed no better than other classes of financial institutions. At the other extreme, hedge funds have been the least regulated, and on the whole they did better than most others in the financial sector. One major problem with regulations is the regulators themselves. See here.
Benjamin Powell at Washington Times: America’s move to act swiftly and boldly misses the point. Bank bailouts and fiscal stimulus bills don’t work because they strive to maintain the status quo. But the status quo is the problem and exactly what needs to be corrected. The U.S. housing bubble drew too many workers and too much capital into construction and related industries. So funding public works projects to keep those companies in business is the wrong solution. See here. (HT: EconLog)
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