Richard Epstein: Peak Dishonesty, Econospeak Epstein is the doyen of libertarian legal theorists. Larry Tisch Professor of law at NYU and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, he has vast influence throughout the conservative world, including the White House. His latest jag is calling for an early end to isolation policies to contain the […]
The Mankiw CV Plan Greg Mankiw has posted a suggestion for delivering money to people that targets the benefit to those who need it the most. The idea is clever: 1. Pay people the benefit B. (This could be spread over many weeks or months.) Everyone gets the same B. 2. Next year at tax time, […]
Congress and the Fed Could Ensure Universal Protection During the Pandemic No matter how well or poorly the federal government addresses the overall economic crisis, millions of vulnerable people will be left unprotected. Homeless people, incarcerated people, immigrants, people in fringe, off-the-books employment like day labor—unless steps are taken that specifically target them, they are […]
AFL-CIO has a Plan From the AFL-CIO website: PRIORITIES OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT TO ADDRESS THE CORONAVIRUS: PROTECT FRONT-LINE WORKERS Streamline approaches for allocating and distributing personal protective equipment to working people in greatest need. Issue a workplace safety standard to protect front-line workers and other at-risk workers from infectious diseases. Provide workplace controls, protocols, training […]
For a Universal Debt and Rental Moratorium Incomes are collapsing throughout the economy, and both businesses and individuals face a crisis in meeting fixed payments they can’t control. The most direct step we can take is to temporarily suspend these payment obligations. Suppose the government were to announce that, starting immediately, all stipulated debt and […]
Some Ideas for Pandeminomics The starting point for all of what follows is that government, if it has the will to act, is currently in the driver’s seat. Much of the private sector is facing a terrifying confluence of crunches: supply breakdowns, demand falling off a cliff for many goods and services, and a looming […]
Benefit-Cost Analysis and the Coronavirus We are in the middle of a flurry of decision-making on how to deal with COVID-19. After much resistance, officials are now canceling public events, closing schools and discouraging other activities that put us in contact with each other. Travel restrictions and possible shutdowns of workplaces, as we’ve seen in […]
(Dan here…Late to AB posting…what a difference a day or two can make. Elizabeth Warren has withdrawn from the election process and is not endorsing either Biden nor Sanders at the moment. Peter weighs in speculating on what is next.) 1. Biden benefitted from a wave of (orchestrated) last minute endorsements. One effect of this wave […]
Protecting Healthcare Workers from Infected Patients, United States vs South Korea Seattle: Korea: Those bedsheets will do a great job preventing the virus from spreading.
The Debate within Unions over Health Care is about the Nature of Unionism Itself Casual observers of the political scene got an insight into union politics when a small storm erupted over a flyer distributed by Nevada’s Culinary Union attacking Bernie Sanders and his Medicare for All proposal. Politico has a piece surveying similar disputes in other states […]