Trust is a precious and often underappreciated quality in political, personal, and business relations. Trust fosters productive exchange and minimizes the burdens of cooperation. When trust is high, monitoring costs are low, surely a good thing, for when handshakes suffice, formal contracts are redundant. Trust fosters long-term success. Consider Owenhouse, perhaps America’s best hardware store, […]

I occasionally meet truly remarkable individuals. Sometimes, I have the good fortune to work with them. Rarely is it over decades. When such folks pass on, America is a lesser place. Such a loss occurred when Myron Vinger died April 12. He was a top hand, a real mensch, a good friend, and a patriotic […]

Here’s why we should be worried about running out of fresh water—in most places around the world it’s free—priced at zero. Any resource priced at zero will be wasted. Environmental and social problems follow. Here’s one example. The Ogallala Aquifer underlies 225,000 square miles in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska. Use of […]

Unless deliberately randomized, as in drawings for moose permits or draft lottery numbers in the 1970s, decisions are based on information and incentives. It follows that to change behavior, people’s information and the incentives to act on that information must change. Little else, surely not professed concern, will suffice. Well-intentioned people who ignore or discount […]

The faculty of Montana State University, by far the most visible and significant employer in our area, is considering a vote to unionize. I’ve been asked two probing questions. First, why would professors, generally “liberals” and among the most fortunate individuals in Montana, organize to extract more money from citizens of one of the poorest […]