On Trump On Panama Canal Fees

TweetThis letter of mine appears in today’s New York Times: To the Editor: Donald Trump complains that the fees Panama charges for ships to use its canal are a “complete ‘rip-off.’” How mysterious. Given Mr. Trump’s belief that “the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff,’” he should be pleased that these fees are…

On Trump On Panama Canal Fees

More Police, Fewer Prisons, and Other Ways to Reduce Crime

What does the existing research evidence say about how to reduce crime? Jennifer Doleac offers and over overview in “Why Crime Matters, and What to Do About It.” It appear as an essay in a book published by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, Strengthening America’s Economic Dynamism, edited by Melissa Kearney and Luke Pardue. You…

More Police, Fewer Prisons, and Other Ways to Reduce Crime

Two examples of wages rising for one occupation leading workers to move into it from other occupations

See $500,000 Pay, Predictable Hours: How Dermatology Became the ‘It’ Job in Medicine: Americans’ newfound obsession with skin care has medical students flocking to this specialty by Te-Ping Chen of The WSJ. Excerpts:”Four-day workweeks, double the salary of some colleagues and no emails at night. If those perks sound like they belong to a few vaunted…

Two examples of wages rising for one occupation leading workers to move into it from other occupations

The Changing US Labor Market

There is a widespread belief that the US labor market has been undergoing a period of unprecedented chance in the last decade or two. On one hand, David Deming, Christopher Ong, and Lawrence H. Summers case doubt on this historical claim in their essay, ” Technological Disruption in the US Labor Market”–that is, they argue…

The Changing US Labor Market

The New FDA and the Regulation of Laboratory Developed Tests

The FDA under President Trump and new FDA head Martin Makary should rapidly reverse the FDA’s powergrab on laboratory developed tests. To recap, laboratory developed tests (LDTs) are the kind your doctor orders, they are a service not a product and are not sold directly to patients. Congress has never given the FDA the authority […]

The New FDA and the Regulation of Laboratory Developed Tests

Scandinavian Governments Are Greedy, not Socialist

Scandinavian nations are not socialist, at least if we’re using the technical definition (government ownership, central planning, and price controls). But those countries do have big welfare states. And that means stifling tax burdens. And those harsh taxes don’t just apply to rich taxpayers. Lower-income and middle-class people also get pillaged. I’ve already explained that punitive value-added […]

Scandinavian Governments Are Greedy, not Socialist

“This Orange County…They Don’t Play”: California’s Tougher Shoplifting Law Receives Curious Endorsement

Proposition 36, which increases punishments for some retail theft and drug possession offenses, overwhelmingly passed in California despite the opposition of Gov. Gavin Newsom and most Democrats.  Newsom denounced the measure as something that “takes us back to the 1980s, mass incarceration.” Despite discussing her tough-on-crime record in the election, Vice President Kamala Harris refused […]

“This Orange County…They Don’t Play”: California’s Tougher Shoplifting Law Receives Curious Endorsement

Technological Disruption in the US Labor Market

Deming, Ong and Summers have a good overview of long-run and very recent changes in the US labor market. Using a measure of occupational titles the authors find: The years spanning 1990-2017 were the most stable period in the history of the US labor market, going back nearly 150 years. It’s a bit too early […]

Technological Disruption in the US Labor Market

Bye and Bye: Washington State Moves To Toward a “Wealth Tax” As the Wealthy Move to Leave the State

Washington State’s unofficial state motto has long been “Al-ki” which means either “bye and bye” or “by and by” in Chinook. The former meaning now seems official as Gov. Jay Inslee pushed for a “wealth tax.” Wealthy citizens are already saying bye to the state in anticipation of what one Democratic billionaire recently called a […]

Bye and Bye: Washington State Moves To Toward a “Wealth Tax” As the Wealthy Move to Leave the State

Marginal Revolution Podcast–The New Monetary Economics!

Today on the MR Podcast Tyler and I discuss the “New Monetary Economics”. Here’s the opening TABARROK: Today we’re going to be talking about the new monetary economics. Now, perhaps the first thing to say is that it’s not new anymore. The new monetary economics refers to a set of claims and ideas about monetary economics […]

Marginal Revolution Podcast–The New Monetary Economics!

Palagashvili and Stossel on How Vile Labor Unions Can Be

TweetIn this video, GMU Econ alum – and my Mercatus Center colleague – Liya Palagashvili talks with John Stossel about the economic destructiveness of labor unions. The post Palagashvili and Stossel on How Vile Labor Unions Can Be appeared first on Cafe Hayek.

Palagashvili and Stossel on How Vile Labor Unions Can Be

Some Links

TweetGeorge Will is rightly appalled by the Luddism of Trump and American longshoremen. Two slices: Longshoremen won a tentative 61.5 percent pay increase over six years. The Wall Street Journal editorial page notes “the astounding fact” that there are only about 25,000 port jobs, so about half of ILA members do not have to show…

Some Links

Some Simple Economics of the Google Antitrust Case

The case is straightforward: Google pays firms like Apple billions of dollars to make its search engine the default. (N.B. I would rephrase this as Apple charges Google billions of dollars to make its search engine the default–a phrasing which matters if you want to understand what is really going on. But set that aside […]

Some Simple Economics of the Google Antitrust Case

Call in the Bailiffs: How the NZ Government’s Green Investment Fund Turned Itself Into an Unpleasant Predatory Lender and Debt Collection Agency.

The just resigned Chair of the NZ Green Investment Fund (NZGIF) and Chancellor of Auckland University, Cecilia Tarrant, previously worked at Morgan Stanley Bank in New York, starting in 1997 and finishing in 2009. She’s a very nice person, a lawyer by training, and Structured Products expert, in particular on Mortgage Backed Securities. The collapse of…

Call in the Bailiffs: How the NZ Government’s Green Investment Fund Turned Itself Into an Unpleasant Predatory Lender and Debt Collection Agency.

Health insurance companies are not the main villain

First of all, insurance companies just don’t make that much profit. UnitedHealth Group, the company of which Brian Thompson’s UnitedHealthcare is a subsidiary, is the most valuable private health insurer in the country in terms of market capitalization, and the one with the largest market share. Its net profit margin is just 6.11%… That’s only about half of […]

Health insurance companies are not the main villain

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