Imagine you are going on a nature walk on an extremely cold day. You are ten miles from your home or any other shelter. I come along, point a gun at your head, and steal all of your clothes, but leave you your wallet. I then offer to sell you the bundle of clothes I… Continue reading What is a mutually beneficial transaction really?
Author: Matt Bruenig
Sex discrimination or not: a great capability approach example
Reading up on employment sex discrimination today, I ran across a fascinating case. A group of women sued their employer because under the employer’s retirement plan, women who opted for the annuity option received a smaller monthly pension check than men who did the same. In an annuity contract, individuals generally pay an insurance company… Continue reading Sex discrimination or not: a great capability approach example
More support for risk-stress model of why poor kids do worse
Earlier I summarized what I think are the four most often mentioned ideas about why poor kids do worse in school. It is not just school of course: poor kids do worse in any number of ways throughout their life. Among the theories, I think the “effects of poverty” theory has the most plausibility and… Continue reading More support for risk-stress model of why poor kids do worse
Database failure wiped out comments
I had a database failure, and for some reason reader comments are not showing up. Because I use disqus, I know those comments are not actually stored in my database. So there is some hope that I will recover them. But for the time, they are gone. Just in case you were wondering. Edit: They’re… Continue reading Database failure wiped out comments
Fairness and the capital gains tax
Mike Konczal has an excellent rundown of recent arguments about the fairness of the capital gains tax. Konczal titles his post “Is Taxing Capital Income Fair?” To me, there is a more interesting question that precedes the one being asked here, and that is: is capital income fair? As Richard Seymour recently pointed out, descriptions… Continue reading Fairness and the capital gains tax