Tag: The Economy

  • Post-Mortem, Episode II

    “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” “A Republic, if you can keep it.” — Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787 I do not want to say much about the election today, but I do want to share a few thoughts. I will begin by referring the reader to…

  • Election 2012: Please Vote

    I have been quiet about this year’s election, but not for lack of caring.  The last few months have been extremely busy for me; to my shame, my busy schedule has meant that I have been silent about what is likely the most important presidential election in more than 30 years, not to mention extremely…

  • More on Inequality

    On the heels of my post on upward mobility comes an insightful post by Cato’s Michael Tanner. Two key quotations: In the end, however, one has to ask a more basic question. Why do we care about inequality at all? Poverty, of course, is a bad thing. But is inequality? After all, if we doubled…

  • Upward Mobility

    I read an interesting article on economic mobility in National Review Online, which got me thinking. The article is good in that it points out some of the statistical challenges in measuring upward mobility. For example, who counts as poor? Who counts as middle class? Are we measuring intergenerational or intragenerational mobility? In acknowledging these…

  • Hard Times

    You know times are bad when large corporations start accepting advertising money to do product placement in their web chat tech support sessions. For example: “Thank you, I’ve found your account information.  While I’m looking up your account info, be sure to check out _____, where you can meet friends, play games, etc.” That just…