Posted in Distributive Justice, Equality, Politics, economics, tagged minimum wage on May 12, 2008 | No Comments »
Megan McArdle writes disapprovingly of the minimum wage:
Both at Crooked Timber, and in my own beloved comment threads, the suggestion has been made that the minimum wage is really swell because it gets rid of low-productivity jobs that only pay the minimum wage.
This sounds lovely–if you are the kind of person who has the skills [...]
Posted in Distributive Justice, Equality, Politics, Rationality, economics, tagged conservatism, happiness, liberalism on May 8, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I wrote earlier about Pew research findings that Republicans are happier than Democrats, and, generally, conservatives are happier than liberals. Here was my explanation:
I think it’s likely that happy people are more likely to be Republicans, while unhappy people are more likely to be Democrats, for unhappiness gives one an incentive to seek change, [...]
Posted in Politics, economics, tagged taxes on May 7, 2008 | No Comments »
Greg Mankiw observes a fundamental split on tax policy, reflecting an underlying split in political philosophy:
If you think it is the job of government to take from Peter to pay Paul, and if Peter can move around the globe, then you need international tax cooperation. Otherwise, some countries will become nations of Peters, leaving all [...]
Posted in Politics, economics, tagged energy on May 4, 2008 | 9 Comments »
Glenn Reynolds finds additional evidence that our political class is dysfunctional. Sadly, such evidence seems all too easy to come by.
Incoherence in energy policy and other areas stems in part from paying attention to polls. Even if every individual person had a coherent view of the subject matter—a plainly counterfactual assumption!—the collection of [...]
Posted in Politics, economics, foreign policy, tagged free trade on April 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Larry Summers makes the case for free trade. (HT: Greg Mankiw)
Posted in Organizations, Religion, economics, tagged church growth movement on April 28, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Lydia McGrew writes compellingly about pressure in companies to advance, to develop one’s career by changing jobs frequently:
there is intense pressure constantly to be changing one’s role in the company. This is billed as “developing,” “advancing.” “Move up or move out,” is the basic message. Even if, as does sometimes happen, you do well at [...]
Posted in Education, economics, tagged textbooks on April 26, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The New York Times complains about the high cost of textbooks, and says that something ought to be done about it. Greg Mankiw points out that, if textbook prices really were unreasonably high, textbooks would represent an excellent business opportunity, and the Times should go into the business and undercut the current publishers, something [...]
Posted in Politics, economics, tagged taxes on April 18, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Roger Simon points out Obama’s confusion and evasiveness on the subject of taxes. There’s no mystery about why cutting the capital gains tax raises more revenue and why, correspondingly, raising the tax would bring in less revenue—both of which effects are well-confirmed empirically. Cutting capital gains taxes raises the after-tax value of stocks. [...]
Posted in Politics, economics, justice, tagged fairness, taxes on April 17, 2008 | No Comments »
We usually think we have a good common sense grasp on what’s fair and what’s not. Kwame Anthony Appiah points out that when it comes to tax policy, at any rate, that’s not so, as Thomas Schelling’s research demonstrates:
Would it be fair, do you think, to give poor parents a bigger credit than rich [...]
Posted in Politics, Religion, economics, tagged human nature, perfectability, socialism on April 17, 2008 | No Comments »
Bill Kristol has observed that Obama’s shares Marx’s assumption that religion is the opiate of the masses. More broadly, he assumes with Marx that economic factors determine cultural ones, which are mere superstructure. Pennsylvania voters feel frustrated economically, Obama thinks, so they adopt certain cultural attitudes as a displacement of their real concerns.
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