What would it take to save a scab industry from leaving the market place? The sorcerous of Grand Rapids Betsy DeVos has the answer. Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education reversed the Obama-era crackdown on vocational and career schools thereby allowing new and inexperienced entrants into the field and alleviating pressure on old participants to have […]
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child After Peter Dorman’s latest post this seems appropriate to follow up. Very recently I was at a talk where somebody spoke on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. A theme of the talk was how few Americans know about this UN Convention while […]
This tidbit was reported in an October 13, 1989 Los Angeles Times. In a June 21 (1989) legal opinion requested by Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, Assistant Atty. Gen. William P. Barr reversed a ruling dating back to the Carter Administration denying the FBI authority to take unilateral action overseas in what was then referred to […]
In this post I will use revealed preference and assume people are rational. Sorry. I’m an economist and I can’t entirely resist. I will argue that our joy and suffering is bounded, that we can’t be infinitely happy or infinitely miserable. The first argument is standard, the second is something Peter Mollgaard thought of the […]
by New Deal democrat The three best arguments against an economic slowdown I still think I’m right that there will be a worsening economic slowdown that shows up by about summertime and continues towards the end of the year.But there is one long leading indicator and two important short leading indicators that are going the […]
by New Deal democrat The economy in 2019: a look at the “big picture” Although I have a bunch of nerdy forecasting models, I view my primary mission as trying to explain what is going on in the economy for ordinary middle and working class American workers and consumers.I’ve been meaning to do a “30,000 […]
Is Stephen Moore a Gold Bug? A lot of the criticisms of putting the twin village idiots known as Herman Cain and Stephen Moore on the FED assert that they are gold bugs. Kate Riga watched CNN when Erin Burnett interviewed Stephen Moore on this allegation: Stephen Moore tries to flip-flop on the gold standard — but […]
Economics, the Realm of Money and the Significance of GDP Growth, with an Application to Child Labor What’s economics? There are two answers. One is it’s the sphere of human activity encompassing the production and distribution of goods and services, which has sometimes been referred to as provisioning. This is quite a lot but not […]
February JOLTS: a mirror of the poor jobs report The JOLTS report on labor is noteworthy and helpful because it breaks down the jobs market into a more granular look at hiring, firing, and voluntary quits. Its drawback is that the data only goes back less than 20 years, so from the point of view […]