economics
mikethemadbiologist | September 5, 2006Looking at the comments from a previous post about social security, I wanted to address a couple of other points, and then provide some more evidence about the ridiculousness of the Social Security 'crisis.' First, as I'll discuss below, Social Security will not collapse. There is no serious evidence to support that scenario (please, take a deep breath; I'll get to that). If you want to privatize social security, cut benefits, or change the eligibilty rules (one-third of Social Security payouts do not go to the elderly, but to widows, orphans, and the disabled), you have to make those…
mikethemadbiologist | September 1, 2006
Here's what the mayor of Salt Lake City, UT said yesterday. You would think he's one of those Northeast liberal elitist, latte-drinkin' types...
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Jackson:
A patriot is a person who loves his or her country.
Who among you loves your country so much that you have come here today to raise your voice out of deep concern for our nation - and for our world?
And who among you loves your country so much that you insist that our nation's leaders tell us the truth?
Let's hear it: "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"
Let no one deny we are patriots. We…
mikethemadbiologist | August 29, 2006
I'm always astonished how so many people can think that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, that the sun revolves around the earth, or that intelligent design is a valid theory. Another idiocy that can joined this esteemed list is the belief that Social Security will go bankrupt.
Bob Kerrey and Warren Rudman have an op-ed piece in the Washington Post about getting the deficit under control where once again they claim that entitlements are going to increase out of control. First, they confuse the issue by conflating (and combining) Social Security and Medicare. This is incredibly…
mikethemadbiologist | August 29, 2006No, it's not by me, silly! David Dobbs at Smooth Pebbles has a great explanation of why business should be in favor of a national healthcare system. Other than GM and a few smaller companies, business interests are usually against this idea. I think David's post puts the lie to the idea that business behaves rationally...
mikethemadbiologist | August 28, 2006The NY Times has an article about how real wages are not keeping pace with productivity increases. Quoth the Grey Lady:
With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.
That situation is adding to fears among Republicans that the economy will hurt vulnerable incumbents in this year's midterm elections even though overall growth has been healthy for much of the last five years.
The median hourly wage for American workers…
mikethemadbiologist | August 6, 2006Here are some posts I collected off those internets you might find interesting:
The NSA literally doesn't have enough electricity to run all of its equipment. At least, it will be harder for them to violate our freedoms. Maybe there is an upside to global warming...
An interesting take on upper middle class subsurbs. I'm not sure I agree, but it is interesting.
A nice takedown of the Bush Administration's economic 'accomplishments.'
Juan Cole gets all Dark Lord of Mordor on your ass. Seriously, he proposes a very interesting hypothesis. Given all of the ridiculousness Little Lord…
mikethemadbiologist | August 1, 2006...that conservatives don't have to face reality, they can just invent their own? DeLong writes about one delusional tax 'plan' (italics mine):
There is a serious issue here: When one does policy evaluation of the proposals of an administration, does one evaluate the effects of the policies that the administration has proposed? Or does one evaluate the effects of the policies that the administration has proposed plus policies that the administration has not proposed, shows no inclination to propose, but that one wishes it would propose?
I think the italicized part explains how so many have…
mikethemadbiologist | July 29, 2006While the main reason to use antibiotics only when needed is to preserve their effectiveness, it's always nice to have an economic incentive coupled with proper use of these important drugs. From the Guernsey Press and Star:
The States prescribing support unit is claiming success in a campaign to encourage islanders to think more carefully about their need for the drugs.
Prescriptions fell by 983 courses - a reduction of 3.3% on the previous year - between October 2005 and March 2006, reducing costs to the States by £30,000.
'That is a significant reduction in what is the peak season for…
purepedantry | July 24, 2006The Economist has an article about an economist using evolutionary ideas. To wit:
...Eric Beinhocker, of the McKinsey Global Institute, has undertaken his own 500-page haj, entitled "The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics". In places (such as its headline call for a "paradigm shift" in economics) the book may irk Mr Krugman and other gatekeepers of the profession. But it is good enough, and scholarly enough, to warrant their attention rather than their scorn.
Indeed, Mr Beinhocker is himself critical of "loose analogising" between biology and…
mikethemadbiologist | July 17, 2006Just when I thought that after six years of Little Lord Pontchartrain, I just couldn't be shocked anymore, I find a heart warming story of profiting from the Sept. 11 Massacres. By way of The Big Picture comes this Wall Street Journal report (italics mine):
On Sept. 21, 2001, rescuers dug through the smoldering remains of the World Trade Center. Across town, families buried two firefighters found a week earlier. At Fort Drum, on the edge of New York's Adirondacks, soldiers readied for deployment halfway across the world.
Boards of directors of scores of American companies were also busy that…
mikethemadbiologist | July 12, 2006From the National Journal comes this story about pay raises (and the lack thereof) in the Bush White House (italics mine):
President Bush's most senior aides -- the ones who hold the coveted title of "assistant to the president" -- recently received a $4,200 cost-of-living bump-up in compensation and now earn a top pay rate of $165,200, according to an internal White House list of staff salaries. The list was compiled by the administration for the year that ended June 30 and is displayed both alphabetically, and by dollar ranking, below. Those at the bottom of the White House staff pay scale…
purepedantry | July 9, 2006This study from the University of Michigan used eBay to determine whether a seller's reputation helped them get higher prices:
"People with good reputations are rewarded and people with no reputations are not trusted as well as people who have established reputations," said Paul Resnick, professor in the U-M School of Information and the study's principal author.
The study is the first known randomized controlled look at the value of eBay reputations in the natural setting of actual eBay auctions. The findings showed that eBay's feedback system--the cornerstone of the online auction site--…
purepedantry | July 9, 2006I think this paper sounds fascinating but we don't have access to NBER papers here. Anyway, check out this abstract:
Cultures of Corruption: Evidence From Diplomatic Parking Tickets
Corruption is believed to be a major factor impeding economic development, but the importance of legal enforcement versus cultural norms in controlling corruption is poorly understood. To disentangle these two factors, we exploit a natural experiment, the stationing of thousands of diplomats from around the world in New York City. Diplomatic immunity means there was essentially zero legal enforcement of…
tlambert | September 25, 2004 For a webzine that has "Where free markets meet technology" in its masthead, Tech Central Station sure seems to have little faith in the ability of free markets to provide consumers with what they want. Consider this column by Glenn Reynolds. Reynolds reckons that bookstore employees are driving customers away: Even my hard-core lefty colleagues have noticed the wall of Bush-bashing books that are prominently displayed at the entrance to every bookstore in town, and to my surprise, one of them told me the other day that it was turning him off.…