Bacon-wrapped hot dogs are common in downtown Los Angeles and especially in Mexican border cities. Tijuana, for example, has a vendor at almost every corner. Well now, apparently, Los Angeles is trying to ban the cart sale of these very delicious bacon-wrapped hot dogs.
As a huge fan of bacon-wrapped hot dogs (I’ve eaten more […]
Archive for the 'Poverty' Category
Apr30th2008
The Argument Against Regulations
Published by in Economics, Hispanics (Minority Issues), Myths, Personal and Poverty. 0 CommentsApr18th2008
Milton Friedman On Race, Poverty And Government
Published by in Capitalism, Chicanoism, Discrimination, Economics, Education, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues), Minimum Wage, ModernPolitics, Myths, Poverty, Vouchers and affirmative action. 1 CommentYou need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
From an old speech but just as relevant today as it was then.
Apr1st2008
“We examine changes in the characteristics of American youth between the late 1970s and the late 1990s, with a focus on characteristics that matter for labor market success. We reweight the NLSY79 to look like the NLSY97 along a number of dimensions that are related to labor market success, including race, gender, parental background, education, […]
Mar17th2008
“Not only are government subsidies for government tuition unnecessary, they also victimize the truly disadvantaged people in our society: those who lack the educational qualifications to go to college in the first place (usually due to a combination of poor public schooling and a flawed family environment). These people pay some of the taxes that […]
Mar11th2008
Brad Schiller, professor of economics at American University and the University of Nevada, Reno writes on the inequality myth:
While there is some substance to these fears of widening inequality and middle-class stagnation, the situation is not nearly as clear-cut. Demographic changes in the size and composition of U.S. households have distorted the statistics in important […]
Feb19th2008
“The number of poor people who can’t afford food for their children is a lot smaller than it used to be — thanks to capitalism. Capitalism didn’t create malnutrition, it reduced it. The globalization of capitalism from 1950 to the present has increased annual average income in the world to $7,000 from $2,000. Contrary to […]
Feb12th2008
Quote Of The Day
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, Discrimination, Economics, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues), Myths, Poverty and affirmative action. 2 Comments“There was very little civil rights law before Title VII; nevertheless the black-white income differential narrowed more rapidly in that benighted era than it has since. It is possible that antidiscrimination laws do not benefit their intended beneficiaries, because they give the beneficiaries a sense of entitlement and victimhood, foster tokenism, increase employers’ costs, cast […]
Feb11th2008
Why The Slowing Of Black Progress?
Published by in Discrimination, Economics, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and Poverty. 7 CommentsGary Becker’s answer:
Why did the progress of blacks stop well short of achieving full equality with whites, and is the slowdown during the past 20 years in black progress only temporary, or is it an indication of what the racial situation will be during the next few decades? The sharp slowdown is surprising mainly because […]
Jan11th2008
Poverty In The USA And The Difference Between Conservatives And Liberals
Published by in Economics, General and Poverty. 2 CommentsThis old post on poverty by Megan McArdle of The Atlantic reminds me why she is on the top of my reading list:
My own thoughts on welfare reform: it’s clear to me from the research I’ve done to write about poverty, and from reading books like DeParle’s, that the poor suffer from three main problems: […]
Dec13th2007
Arthur Laffer On President Clinton And The Economy
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, Economics, General, Inequality, ModernPolitics, Poverty and Taxes. 4 CommentsI met Arthur Laffer in July of this year, at the Libertarians FreedomFest Convention in Las Vegas. I found him to be, by far, the most entertaining and provocative speaker (He is also, btw, a HUGE illegal immigration supporter). Since then, I added him to my “Must Read Anything They Write” list of economists. […]
Nov30th2007
Paradigms Of Poverty
Published by in Economics, General, ModernPolitics, Personal and Poverty. 2 CommentsIf you put three economists in a room together one liberal, one conservative, and one libertarian and discussed minority poverty and its causes, how would the discussion unfold? After many years of reading about this topic from various sources, I have come to believe that the break down would look something like this.
The liberal economist […]
Nov20th2007
Quote Of The Day
Published by in Economics, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and Poverty. 0 Comments“I tend to think that race is over-rated as a predictive factor in America. For instance, in education, they always talk about the “black-white test gap.” They never talk about the “unwed mother vs. two-parent test gap.” I’ll bet that the latter is larger”. –Arnold Kling, discussing Walter Williams article on broken families and poverty
Nov13th2007
“However, if poverty is defined in the relative sense, the lowest fifth of income-earners, “poverty” will always be with us. No matter how poverty is defined, if I were an unborn spirit, condemned to a life of poverty, but God allowed me to choose which nation I wanted to be poor in, I’d choose the […]
Oct3rd2007
Is UCLA A Charity?
Published by in Economics, Education, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues), Poverty and University. 6 CommentsLong time readers of my blog know that I strongly disagree with those who argue that Universities need more government funding - especially elite Universities like UCLA. I’ve blogged on this in depth before, see here.
Robert Reich, former president Bill Clintons labor secretary, makes similar arguments in the Los Angeles Times:
Is Harvard a charity?
Most donations […]
Sep17th2007
Minorities Spending Habits
Published by in Economics, Education, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and Poverty. 0 CommentsKerwin Kofi Charles, Erik Hurst, and Nikolai Roussanov have a new research paper on minority spending. The abstract states:
Using nationally representative data on consumption, we show that Blacks and Hispanics devote larger shares of their expenditure bundles to visible goods (clothing, jewelry, and cars) than do comparable Whites. We demonstrate that these differences exist […]
Aug16th2007
Gary Becker, Nobel Laureate in economics, writes:
Let me respond to the important question of how can we reduce gentrification that replaces lower income housing by middle and upper income housing. I believe in allowing supply and demand in the housing market to determine land use. Unfortunately, the balance is frequently artificially tilted in favor […]
