by David Zetland (reposted from Aguanomics) What went wrong in Capetown? I asked that question of Mike Muller, who has been working on water issues there for decades. He referred me to this op/ed he wrote and — more important — the inadequate response from a local city councillor. [Tl;dr: Failure to invest against risk […]
A Kennedy-Reagan-Trump Fiscal Policy? Heather Long reports that the White House economists have no clue about the history of U.S. fiscal policy: President Trump’s policies are driving an economic turnaround that puts him in the company of transformative presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, White House economists said Wednesday as they unveiled their […]
Will Automation Kill Our Jobs? by Walter E. Williams appeared in the Gaston Gazette, Charleston Gazette-Mail, Daily Tribune, Frontpage Mag, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Townhall, Holmes County Times-Advertiser, National Interest, Rocky Mount Telegram and CNS News (not to mention the Dogpatch Völkischer-Beobachter). It features the following cutting edge (& pasting) analysis: People always want more of something that will create a job for someone. […]
Divide and Rule There was a time, one I can remember from when I was growing up (the 1950s and 60s), when being a liberal meant you wanted certain rights and benefits for everyone, at least ostensibly. We had Social Security because everyone should have a basic pension when they retire, and all disabled people […]
Paying for Health Care Over Time Simon Wren Lewis illustrates the long-run government budget constraint with this tale: There are many reasons why, outside of a recession, deficits that, if sustained, would steadily increase the debt to GDP ratio may be bad for the economy, but let me give the most obvious here. For a given […]
A Critical Review of Jeffrey Miron’s Call to Slash Entitlements I accused John Cochrane of incoherent babbling on the Federal deficit issue noting his update where he flip flopped: He went from fiscal policy being sober to we are in dire straights just like that! Oh my the sky is falling. We have to take away those […]
The Wall St. Journal quoted Peter Thiel’s business plans. It is mostly behind a paywall. Competition is for Losers If you want to create and canpture lasting value, look to build a monopoly, writes Peter Thiel By Peter Thiel Sept. 12, 2014 11:25 a.m. ET What valuable company is nobody building? […]
All Economists Are Bastards — Except Us Peter Frase has a very interesting post up about the role of popular culture in legitimizing the police. Frase recounted a forum he attended with Alex Vitale talking about his book, The End of Policing. In response to a question about why people believe that the function of policing is […]
Fiscal Stability or Dire Straights: John Cochrane’s Latest Rant At times John Cochrane babbles on incoherently on what should be a straight forward issue. This post is one example: Once you net out interest costs, it is interesting how sober US fiscal policy actually has been over the years. In economic good times, we run primary surpluses. […]
Why I’m worried about the decline in real wages This is a follow-up to my post yesterday concerning the decline in real average and aggregate wages. Why should the data from just one month cause me to warn that “This is Bad?” To show you, let’s decompose the data into CPI and nominal aggregate wages, […]