The last word on Piketty: Deirdre McCloskey, John McTernan, Chris Giles Panel
29 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, poverty and inequality Tags: Deidre McCloskey, Piketty
Milton Friedman on Reducing the Income Gap through School Vouchers
26 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of education, human capital, Milton Friedman, poverty and inequality, Rawls and Nozick Tags: Milton Friedman, School choice, vouchers
The relative importance of capitalism and the British welfare state in abolishing destitution
24 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
HT: Andrew Newell
Deirdre McCloskey on Piketty’s definition of wealth in the Age of Human Capital
23 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
Have changing household composition and retirement caused the decline in median household income? » AEI
23 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, labour economics, labour supply, poverty and inequality Tags: poverty and inequality
Deirdre McCloskey has a 55-page review essay on Piketty
21 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics, liberalism, poverty and inequality Tags: Deirdre McCloskey, Piketty
You will find it here (pdf), forthcoming in the Erasmus Journal of Philosophy and Economics.
via Deirdre McCloskey has a 55-page review essay on Piketty.
What if We’re Looking at Inequality the Wrong Way? – NYTimes.com
16 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, entrepreneurship, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, liberalism, Marxist economics, occupational choice, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, public economics, Rawls and Nozick, technological progress Tags: Piketty, poverty and inequality
Have @NZGreens accidentally published a chart showing substantial and pretty continuous real wages growth in recent decades?
12 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: poverty and inequality, The Great Enrichment
The slums of Jebson Pl – down and out in New Zealand includes Sky TV
08 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: poverty and inequality, The Great Erichment, welfare reform
via Whale Oil Beef Hooked and waikato-times
Occupy Wall Street protesters didn’t like what they found when they actually met the bottom 1%
06 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in labour economics, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: bottom 1%, economics of personality traits, Occupy Wall Street, poverty and inequality, top 1%
The Occupy Wall Street protesters had free food provided by kitchens staffed by volunteers.
These self appointed representatives of the bottom 99% didn’t appreciate brushing shoulders with the bottom 1 percent of the social stratum:
The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday — because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.
For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.
They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.
To show they mean business, the kitchen staff refused to serve any food for two hours yesterday in order to meet with organizers to air their grievances, sources said…
Overall security at the park had deteriorated to the point where many frightened female protesters had abandoned the increasingly out-of-control occupation, security- team members said.
Bryan Caplan on the pathologies of poverty
05 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in labour economics, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: Bryan Caplan, do gooders, Occupy Wall Street, poverty and inequality, top 1%
Bryan Caplan drew up a nice list of factors that contribute to poverty
- alcoholism: Alcohol costs money, interferes with your ability to work, and leads to expensive reckless behaviour.
- drug addiction: Like alcohol, but more expensive, and likely to eventually lead to legal troubles you’re too poor to buy your way out of.
- single parenthood: Raising a child takes a lot of effort and a lot of money. One poor person rarely has enough resources to comfortably provide this combination of effort and money.
- unprotected sex: Unprotected sex quickly leads to single parenthood. See above.
- dropping out of high school: High school drop-outs earn much lower wages than graduates. Kids from rich families may be able to afford this sacrifice, but kids from poor families can’t.
- being single: Getting married lets couples avoid a lot of wasteful duplication of household expenses. These savings may not mean much to the rich, but they make a huge difference for the poor.
- non-remunerative crime: Drunk driving and bar fights don’t pay. In fact, they have high expected medical and legal expenses. The rich might be able to afford these costs. The poor can’t.
Caplan argues that there is an undeserving poor if they fail to follow the following reasonable steps to avoid poverty and hardship:
- Work full-time, even if the best job you can get isn’t fun.
- Spend your money on food and shelter before getting cigarettes and cable t.v.
- Use contraception if you can’t afford a child
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