NYU economist Mario Rizzo gives a list of some of the questions and issues that serious people ought to consider on inequality:
There seems to be very little concern, in the popular press, for the causes of unequal distribution. This includes, especially, the causes of the increasing unequal distribution over the past few decades. […]
Bloomberg Businessweek reports:
Moments before a single-engine aircraft and a helicopter collided over the Hudson River near Manhattan in 2009, an air-traffic controller who should have been advising the plane’s pilot was on the phone, joking with an airport worker about a dead cat.
Nine people, including three teenage boys, died. The Teterboro, New Jersey, controller, whom […]
Leftists like to portray the European economic model as more “poor” friendly than the United States economic model. But that depends on what your preferences are: if you are poor and would prefer less disposable income with more government services, then yes, the European model would be preferable. However, if you are poor and would […]
A great analogy by economist Don Boudreaux:
Suppose that groceries were supplied in the same way as K-12 education. Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. Nearly half of those tax revenues would then be spent by government officials to build and operate supermarkets. Each family would be assigned to a particular supermarket […]
“Even among recipients of bachelor’s degrees, 90 percent manage to graduate with less than $40,000 of debt. What happened to the other 10 percent is no particular mystery: they are less likely to come from wealthy families, but they attended pricier schools and paid for more years of tuition (see chart below). Compared with other […]
“In general, anything that increases economic well-being, according to McKenzie, makes us fat. While the standard of living increased over the past several decades, the price of food relative to other goods has fallen about 17%. Research has shown that for every 1% drop in the price of food, people increase food consumption by .6%. […]
McArdle makes a decent case to be cautious about fiscal stimulus here:
Starts to pick up at the 3 min mark.
“As I pointed out just yesterday, many Democrats not only passively acquiesce to Obama’s continuation of core Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, but enthusiastically cheer it as proof that they, too, can be Tough and Strong (manly virtues demonstrated by how many human beings their leader kills from afar). So here you […]
“As a side note, the Communist Party has also given their endorsement. While Communists are certainly responsible for more deaths and misery than the Nazis could ever dream of, at least their intentions were good, so I’ll give them a pass.” — Post on the very liberal DailyKos blog
“Here is a fact that you might not have heard from the Occupy Wall Street crowd: The incomes at the top of the income distribution have fallen substantially over the past few years. According to the most recent IRS data, between 2007 and 2009, the 99th percentile income (AGI, not inflation-adjusted) fell from $410,096 to […]
This John Stossel series is a great watch and touches on most of the fundamental points driving the education debate:
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I admittedly don’t know much about the foreign policy issues surrounding the Israel and Palestinian conflict aside from what I have heard/read from Chomsky and leftists in general. They make some good arguments, but I am suspicious of taking them at face value since these same people make economic arguments - a topic I do […]
The best explanation of why this economic recovery is both taking so long and especially affecting those at the lower end of the economic spectrum was given by economist Bryan Caplan who I quote in full here:
Nominal wages rarely fall - even when there’s high unemployment. Part of the reason is regulation, of course. […]
For the record, I agree with every single point David Frum makes here against Republicans in general:
On the most urgent economic issue of the day – recovery from the Great Recession – the Republican consensus is seriously wrong.
It is wrong in its call for monetary tightening.
It is wrong to demand immediate debt reduction rather than wait […]
“I don’t feel any obligation to represent liberal Democrats. Over the years I’ve argued, for example, in favor of getting rid of the corporate income tax, creating school vouchers inversely related to family incomes, and extending free-trade agreements — positions not exactly favored by liberal Democrats.” – Robert Reich
This inevitable tradeoff appears again in UC online class offerings:
Lecturers make up nearly half the undergraduate teaching corps. They fear — with good reason — that the classes they teach are the most likely to be moved online. Their union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, has negotiated a deal […]
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