“Mr. Larry was a past president of the Sarah Scaife Foundation and also a former board of director for Grove City College and Federal Home Loan of Pittsburgh. His hobbies included fishing, target shooting…” -From the published obituary. I owe a great deal to Dick Larry. He was the president of a major foundation, a […]

  A “middleman” buys cheap, sells dear, and does nothing to improve the product in the meantime. Middlemen are everywhere and probably have been since the very first exchanges started to improve the lives of primitive humans. Marco Polo and his family were middlemen. So is Ebay. Between them, in time and complexity, lie millions […]

  Do I owe something to the beggar on the street? If so, can I discharge that obligation by writing him a check? Does he have a claim against me? If so, can he make that claim by presenting me with a bill?   Is my obligation smaller if the beggar lives in another city? […]

  Intro by John Baden   It is the exception that probes, not proves, the rule.  I know of no logical system in which an exception to a general rule can “prove” the verity of that proposition, generality, principle, or rule.    In this week’s FREE Insights, economist Michael Munger of Duke University describes an […]