Lifted from open thread Aug. 31, 2014 by Sandwichman. My latest on the lump of labor fallacy takes the story back to the 17th century and John Graunt’s Observations on the Bills of Mortality. Graunt speculated about a certain PROPORTION of work to be done. The fallacy claim alleges the assumption of a fixed QUANTITY […]
Peter Dorman at Econospeak describes a common example of thought experiments on markets and externalities, and concludes with “More complex considerations that take into account dynamics, interaction effects and the like never intrude. What you end up with is an ideological truncation of economics, and, as the Great Airplane Debate illustrates, it is largely ideology […]
In my own state of Michigan, there was a battle in the Republican controlled state legislature to expand Medicaid for the 600,000 uninsured citizens. It did pass with some legislators such as Michigan State Senator Joseph Hune complaining loudly about how its passage made him “sick to his stomach.” Even with the passage, the state […]
Do these books include Keynes’ precious term, “Effective Demand”? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I watch as grand economists explain the current economy… in particular, Olivier Blanchard and Paul Krugman. They miss the eventual fight of labor to increase their share… Olivier Blanchard wrote an article, Where danger Lurks. He mentions the Dark Corners where the economy can function […]
I wonder what happens when a Democratic canidate for President campaigns on a proposal to increase taxes on high incomes and cut taxes on middle and lower class incomes (that is on the class warfare platform) ? IIRC what happens is that he gets elected. This is what Clinton did in 1992 and Obama did […]
We now come to the exciting conclusion of Thomas Piketty’s monumental work, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. This is not an exaggeration: the final part of the book contains findings that I consider to be simply bombshells in their significance. In Part 4, “Regulating Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” Piketty calls for a new “social […]
In a new radio interview, [Massachusetts senator-cum-New Hampshire senate candidate Scott] Brown professes support for protecting people with preexisting conditions and other general goals of the law. But he reiterates his support for repealing Obamacare, claiming its goals should only be accomplished by states: “I believe states can do it better. They can certainly cover preexisting […]
In 2015, I predict that Obamacare enrollment will soar, matching 2014’s success. This may seem counter-intuitive. After all, in recent months, the public’s perception of Obamacare seems to have soured. The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation’s health care tracking poll for July reveals that 53% of those surveyed last month said they view the Affordable Care […]
What impact would Congress have on corporations if it were to change the amount of tax-deductible executive performance-based compensation downwards from $1 million to $500,000? The portal to the upper 1% of household taxpayers in income is $500,000 in normal income. If Congress were to limit tax-deductible performance-based income to $500,000, the change would put […]