by Michael Halasy Medical Malpractice Reform: Truth in Advertising Needed (Part Two of Three) So in the first article, we discussed the historical implications of tort reform by examining Texas. The take home message being that tort reform failed to curb health care spending, and/or control costs (outside of malpractice premiums which did fall). Proponents […]
Last year many economists argued that the economy needed more quantitative easing which would drive down real interest rates (whether by driving down long maturity nominal rates or by driving up expected inflation). The counter argument is that quantitative easing is not effective if there is a liquidity trap. Well we now have QE2 (since […]
By Daniel Becker Now that the story is getting out that Governor Walke et al’s bill is about more than just busting unions, a little bell went off in the back of my head. Yes, I read Shock Doctrine. Yes, I understand the true concept of fascism. I read What would Jefferson do. I read […]
by run 75441 Are Wisconsin Public Employees Over-Compensated? Conclusion: Wisconsin public employees are not overpaid: The earnings equation estimates indicate that state and local government employees in Wisconsin are not overpaid. Rather, local and state public employees are undercompensated. When we make comparisons controlling for education, experience, hours of work, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity, […]
by Mike Kimel Going Galt in 2011 – I Guess Atlas Shrugs Was Rightcrossposted at the Presimetrics blog A couple years ago, there was a small spate of commentary of folks by conservatives and libertarians about how, if the Bush tax cuts weren’t renewed, we’d see a bunch of highly productive people going Galt. In […]
Have you heard about 16.896? “…with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state.” Who knew behind the scenes it was also power plants? From rortybomb at the link above: The fight in Wisconsin is over Governor Walker’s 144-page Budget Repair Bill. […]
by Linda Beale Corporate Taxes from the AEI perspective–the AEI report gets an Fcrossposted with Ataxingmatter [edited to correct typos and add link to CTJ and Leonhardt articles 2/19pm] Kevin Hassett, an economic grunt at the American Enterprise Institute and frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages, prepared a report for the institute […]
Health care thought for a cold day: If members of Congress feel so strongly about not doing anything about health care costs, perhaps we should stop providing them with health insurance. Let’s credit their pay for the amount that has been paid by the taxpayers, and let them try to buy health insurance in the […]
Peter Dorman writes at Econospeak about economics insulated from the harsh light of day and evaluation of usefulness: The Embarrassment Known as the Value of a Statistical Life Some economic ideas thrive only in the darkness: they are simply too weird and half-baked to withstand public scrutiny. Perhaps no concept better exemplifies this than the […]
by Linda Beale GOP deficit-reduction hype used in ideological “values” war?crossposted with Ataxingmatter There is concerted effort to portray Social Security as ruining the country by being a significant cause of the current deficit , and this is not accidental. Social Security has been funded by payroll taxes that are supposed to be dedicated to […]