Naked Capitalism has an article The Continuing Depopulation of Detroit on Detroit which I attempted to answer. No one cause can be assigned to answer what happened to Detroit since 1950 and well before the first black Mayor was elected. I attempted to put this into perspective. This is not an easy and nor will […]

The story hardly bears repeating: Pricing is the ultimate miracle of Darwinian markets. Competitors who produce goods at lower prices thrive, expand their operations, and produce more. Those who charge higher prices (for equivalent goods) are driven to extinction when sensible purchasers abandon them for their more-efficient competitors. This inexorable mechanism drives innovation, investment, and productivity, […]

I think you might want to read this excellent post by Simon Wren-Lewis. That is all.

Brad DeLong made a case for big government and higher deficits. Paul Krugman wrote an exagerated pun of praise. The part he liked was the appeal to myopia and paternalistic proposal “The problem is that as we move into the twenty-first century, the commodities we will be producing are becoming … more subject to myopia […]

Guest post by MARK JAMISON via Save the Post Office Epic Fail for the Postal Service: The wrong model and the wrong BOG In 2001 Postmaster General Bill Henderson submitted the first blueprints for a transformation of the Postal Service into a sleeker, more efficient business entity.  To justify the transformation, the rhetoric has repeated […]

Guest Post by MARK JAMISON at Save The Post Office Who owns the post office?  Who is the post office designed to serve?  What is the system’s ultimate function? These questions are fundamental to the future and the fate of the post office, the postal network, and postal services in this country. How we answer […]

The Ezra Kleinless wonkblog remains excellent. In particular Matt O’Brien is about as young, smart, witty, and hard working as Klein. However, I think he may not have read everything. He notes that the allegedly reformicon tax plan includes the Bush tax cuts for the rich on steroids. Then he reviews recent, but only recent, […]

I am trying to think of issues on which there is a marked difference between the views typical of economists and those of non-economists. It is certainly true that non-economists (especially social scientists other than economists) think there are typical economists’ views. These views are held by a solid majority of professors at the University […]

James Carville was certainly right: “It’s the economy, stupid.” And under Democrats (compared to Republicans), the economy kicks ass: This is GDP growth, but that kick-assness is blatant in any economic measure you look at, from job growth to stock-market returns to household income to government deficits. And it’s true over any lengthy period (say, 30+ years) […]

Via Southern Education Foundation: Students are eligible for free meals if they live in households with no more than 135 percent of the poverty level, and they qualify for reduced-price meals if household income is no more than 185 percent of the poverty level. In 2013, the federal poverty threshold was $23,550 for a family […]