Posts tagged as Economics
Reagan Proven Much More Awesome at Fixing America Than Obama
"How do conditions compare locally to when the Reagan administration was asking for a second term. Statistically, have we seen the same kind of recovery from the 2007-to-2009 recession as we did from the 1980-to-1982 recession? Not to ruin the suspense, but the charts below suggest the answer is 'no.' The Miami area enjoyed a much more robust recovery at the end of the Reagan first term than it has under the Obama first term." READ MORE
The Evil Economics Of Judging Teachers
The Times and a host of other publications heralded last week's new study extolling the lifelong money-earning benefits of having a good primary/middle-school teacher. Oh, yay! Let's do what these economists from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggest, right? READ MORE
Economists Just Can't Figure Out This Unemployment Thing
Would you like to play get the economist? Reading Chicago economics prof Casey Mulligan trying to make sense of job losses in the recession is fun for everyone. READ MORE
Why Tall People Earn More
Taller people are smarter than you, so they deserve more money. They are also probably more attractive.
Endless Boom and Bust: Two Proposals Towards a Way Out
The 1970s began in late 1973 and ended in early 1982. A decade-long hangover. The childish joie de vivre of flower power had faded by 1973, five or six years after the Summer of Love, three years after the breakup of The Beatles. The bloom was off the rose and a kind of cynical sense of entitlement had set in. To be cool in 1973 you needed to live in a squat (preferably in The Smoke, as we called London in those days), go on the dole and wear an Afghan coat. Brightly colored underwear was still OK, but the important thing was to be weary and jaded on the outside. A beard, if you could manage it, helped achieve this effect. READ MORE
MN Gov Candidate: Reducing the $2.13 Waiter Pay Creates Jobs!
"[Minnesota] Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. Tom Emmer said the state could gain jobs if employers could a pay a lower hourly wage to employees who earn a lot of money from tips." READ MORE
How To Not Spend Any Money In New York City
Sure, it was basically a glorified ad for the author's overly precious personal-finance site, but that doesn't mean that Alexa von Tobel's recent Huffington Post piece on living in New York City on $0 a day wasn't offensive and dumb. Von Tobel's giggly guide to keeping it real could have been retitled "The Well-Off Person's Guide To Playing Pauper For A Day" — the hold-on-to-your-wallets flip side of all the "aspirational" dreck that clogs too much media even to this day. She walked to work, which just happens to be a mere 20-minute hike from her apartment, instead of taking a cab! She gave up Le Pain lattes and made coffee at home! She had some friends over for a potluck, and even conned a pal into bringing the wine! "I recognize that this experiment is unsustainable for a long period of time," she wrote, but god dimmy, that doesn't mean she's not going to try and piggyback off it for her own personal gain. READ MORE
David Brooks and the Myth of the New Fair Society
Rest easy, America! After our long march through the spiritless battle to prop up our inflammable paper economy, David Brooks has identified the true cause of our distemper: we have been lulled into a terminal state of civic distrust by an overly porous power elite. READ MORE
Here Is What Needs To Happen For Gay Marriage To Pass
Yesterday's defeat of a gay marriage bill in the New Jersey Senate is just one more disappointment in a string of bitter losses for those who seek equal justice under the law. Sure, other countries don't seem to have a problem making fairness legal, but here at home, at the state level, we have apparently decided that we're not going to play along. Many of the objections you hear center around religion, but the sorry undercurrent behind the unwillingness to grant the same rights to homosexuals that their fellow citizens already enjoy and frequently abuse is actually one concerning politics and economics, i.e., in These Troubled Times legislators are not willing to take a chance on equality while their constituents are more concerned about jobs and wages. Basically, gays are screwed until the economy picks up again and we all feel so prosperous that we don't care whether or not two committed partners who happen to be of the same gender want the same benefits as everyone else. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. So let's set some benchmarks! READ MORE
Just Like Wall Street, Hollywood Is Raking It In With Fewer Workers
Even Nikki Finke is a neo-Marxist Keynesian hybrid up in her economic thinkings! "According to BoxOffice.com, 2009's domestic cume has already topped 2008's record haul of $9.626 million from January 1 to December 31, 2008," she writes today, asking: "So Why Is Most Of Hollywood Out Of Work?" You know why, girlfriend! All over America, it's easy to figure out this year that you can pay one person to do the work of two or three. Even best boys.
