I would describe my voting pattern as a soft Republican. For most of my life I have tolerated objectionable segments of the GOP. I have never felt comfortable with the evangelical movement and their ethnocentrism even after they shifted to
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What I enjoy most about the Bernie Sanders campaign is how is has forced the Democrats to face their leftward tilt. That the leader of the party, Ms. Schultz, and Ms. Clinton are either unable or unwilling to articulate the
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from Project Syndicate, The Invention of Inequality by Antonio Foglia Piketty observes a rising wealth-to-income ratio from 1970 to 2010 – a period divided by a significant change in the monetary environment. From 1970 to 1980, the Western economies experienced
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A NYT article, The Debate About America’s Best Days about Robert Gordon’s The Rise and Fall of American Growth sounds like another academic pontificating how our best days are behind us. Reminds me of economists from the 1970s and early
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Powerball Meme Mathematical Illiteracy Illustrates Bernie Sanders’ Appeal by Ed Krayewski at Reason Sanders previously experienced a bit of a surge in the polls over the summer but that didn’t get him past Clinton. Nevertheless, Clinton has been tacking leftward toward Sanders even before the
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from the Wall Street Journal, The Uncounted Trillions in the Inequality Debate by Martin Feldstein: excerpts: These data seem to show a country whose wealth is highly concentrated. But the true picture is hardly as stark as critics of inequality
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From Robert Samuelson at The Washington Post, The coming middle-class tax increase There is a broader message here. Both parties have constructed rationales for avoiding middle-class tax increases, which would be highly unpopular. It’s not that these rationales are illegitimate: The
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From The Wall Street Journal, The Fed Has Hurt Business Investment by Michael Spence and Kevin Warsh; During the past five years earnings of the S&P 500 have grown about 6.9% annually. As the table nearby shows the current profit
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Economist John Cochrane wrote a 10,000 word essay, Economic Growth. Scott Grannis blogged some excerpts here: a few of them: Our economy is like a garden, but the garden is choked with weeds. Rather than look for some great new
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from the Wall Street Journal, Economist Raj Chetty’s Proposals on Inequality Draw Interest on Both Sides of the Political Aisle: By analyzing tax records of families in 741 geographic districts, he pinpoints hotbeds of opportunity. Poorer children in Salt Lake
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from Making It All Up by Andrew Ferguson at The Weekly Standard Behind the people being experimented upon are the people doing the experimenting, the behavioral scientists themselves. In important ways they are remarkably monochromatic. We don’t need to belabor the
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From George Mellaon at the WSJ, Rewriting the Economic Rules: The point, for Mr. Reich, is a familiar one: We are ruled by big business. The granule of truth in that claim has sustained progressive politics for decades, harking back
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from Nick Bunker at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Monopsony and market power in the labor market: We’ve all heard the term “monopoly,” even if it’s just in the context of the board game. But a related term, or
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The Donald Trump campaign is more of an effort desired by the American voting public to field a third party than it is a serious desire to advance Republican politics. The reason a third party has never succeeded is that
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From The Wall Street Journal The Democrats’ Socialist Surge by Jason Riley: excerpt: If the Democratic Party once felt the need to distinguish itself from socialism, that no longer seems to be the case. When Mr. Sanders entered Congress in
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Would you vote to repeal the ACA? Would you vote to outlaw the asset forfeiture allowance? You you think the current drug laws perform some of the same functions as the old Jim Crow Laws? Would you vote to decriminalize
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I generally believe that the highest office in the land should not be one’s first elected office. Politics like any other profession requires skill sets and relationships that are unique to that profession. I do not care if the candidate
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From an historical view- oil was once greeted as environmentally friendly fuel- it eliminated the need to hunt whales for fuel and reduced the smell and health issue of horse feces in Manhattan. Coal kept us from destroying timber assets,
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from Mark Perry in his blog Carpe Diem, John Tamny on ‘surging lifestyle equality’ and the source of the Clintons’ wealth excerpts: All of which brings us to the latest news about Bill and Hillary Clinton. According to numerous media accounts
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from Mark Perry in his blog Carpe Diem, John Tamny on ‘surging lifestyle equality’ and the source of the Clintons’ wealth excerpts: The ‘wealth inequality’ decried by clueless economists and opportunistic politicians has been mis-named. What’s a pejorative is unrelentingly
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