An Introduction

I promise this won’t be a manifesto—nor will it be all inclusive. I am a young professional (say, low-mid twenties) with aspirations yet no clear career path. I move between Washington and New York with the wind, and the only long term goal I have right now is the intention of settling down in Pennsylvania in the twilight of my socialite years. 

I started this blog because I find that I can fill an underutilized niche in the Econosphere: I am considerably younger than most bloggers who have entered the fray, and as such, speak from a different point of view on a lot of issues. My age and upper class upbringing influence my views of entitlement programs, taxation rates, and government agencies. I am a skeptic of our existing entitlement infrastructure, but I am not a skeptic of the thought process that went into each of the programs; that is to say that my views are consistent with the aims of a social safety net, but I’m dubious that we’ve designed the correct system. My goal is to examine specific programs and work to fix the mess we hath wrought through the lens of what is fair and just.

I keep my blogroll as diverse as my portfolio. From the left: Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Jon Chait, Felix Salmon, and Kevin Drum. From the right (squishy as that term may be, particularly with this list): Megan McArdle, Tyler Cowen, Scott Sumner, and Barry Ritholtz. From the center/apolitical: Economist of Contempt (though he leans left), FT Alphaville, Calculated Risk, and Free Exchange. I find that I am more sympathetic to the left on issues of social justice, human rights, and the purpose of government, while I subscribe to libertarian skepticism of public policy and I’m a conservative inflation/deficit hawk (with a splash of NGDP targeting thrown in for good measure). My theory can be summarized as such: we should ask for a lot from our government, but we should be prepared to pay for it too.

Literature that I associate myself with at cocktails includes Rawls (specifically A Theory of Justice), Friedman, Okin, Sachs, von Mises, and many others. I happen to think that A Random Walk Down Wall Street should be required reading for every college student in the social sciences. When I’m not forced to be pretentious, however, my favorite authors (and biggest influences) are more commonly found in the children’s literature section of your local library. I consider myself to be a Harry Potter-holic, and I think that you can learn a lot more from reading Dahl, Sachar, and R.L. Stine than you can from some of the authors I listed above.

I try to read the FT and NYT daily. I think the WSJ is trash, with the exception of the back pages of the B and C sections. My favorite periodicals are the Economist andVanity Fair, because I find the writing in both to be among the best in the world. In the absence of these publications, though, I play video games, exercise, and frequently attend “social gatherings” (the polite term for the anarchy of young adulthood).

I hope you all tune in. Whether you do or not, I’ll be here blathering away.