Being an economist at heart, I recently bought and have just finished reading the book “Discover Your Inner Economist” by Tyler Cowen. The tagline for the book proudly states, “Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist.” Along with the tagline, there is a great media byte on the [...]

Can advertising make you do things? Can you make people think and do things by simple body language? Two simple questions and initially you may think the answer is no. You may think you are aware of advertising and the associated implicit goals, therefore you are making up your own mind whether to purchase a [...]

Search the internet for Presidential campaign news and you will immediately find many references coming from the Obama campaign about the “gimmicks” John McCain supports. Obama’s camp portrays McCain’s views on the energy crisis and potential offshore oil drilling as gimmicky. He believes that his opposition has no real answers to the issues. But of [...]

Since the Iraq invasion in 2003, Americans and politicians alike have wondered when the war would be complete. Defeat was never an option or even a part of the equation. The war carried a predetermined fate of victory already achieved. Our resolve to protect freedom’s life and virtue in the dawn of a new age [...]

Taking a much different path than the last couple of articles, today, I am going to discuss the crime of murder and the associated punishments put forth by the United States and Canada. If you have watched the news over the past week, I’m sure you’ve heard of the horrific murder recently in Canada. To [...]

Americans received a “gift” from the government recently in the form of a stimulus check. Or, some people may like to think of it as a tax rebate or tax refund. It doesn’t matter what you call it, the fact is most Americans who filed taxes for 2007, received a stimulus check from our government. [...]

Recently, the government released the latest unemployment statistics and the numbers were not good. Currently, our nation has an unemployment rate of 5.7% (economists were expecting 5.6%). This was the seventh straight month of increasing unemployment and it is also a 4 year high. These are not good statistics considering the rising costs of living [...]

Barack Obama has recently been touting that Americans can decrease our dependence upon oil by driving on correctly pressurized tires and also by up keeping our car via regular maintenance. Is it too good to be true? Or, is this just another scam such as the fuel additives that “increase” gas mileage and the like? [...]

Everyone loves a pay raise. We automatically get excited because with the arrival of that next paycheck, we will immediately see an increase in purchasing power. On top of that, we fill up with pride knowing that we are being rewarded for our hard work, production, and efficiency while performing our job. Sounds great doesn’t [...]

Recently, I ran across the book “Seinfeld and Philosophy” by William Irwin and being such a huge Seinfeld fan, I happily placed the book on the store counter and forked over $20 so I could enlighten myself. The book contains 14 essays written by several professional philosophers about different subjects throughout the 9 year television [...]