Anyone with even a passing interest in discussions of poverty has heard of the poverty cycle. The poverty cycle explains why poor kids wind up poor as adults by demonstrating that the conditions that correspond with growing up poor set the stage for future poverty. In what seems to be its most popular form, the… Continue reading Think about the poverty cycle really hard
Author: Matt Bruenig
Ridiculously high doctor compensation levels in the US
Healthcare costs in the US are really high relative to other countries. In 2008, the US spent over $7,500 per person on health care, nearly twice the amount of a group of similar OECD countries. As a result, the US spends 16% of its GDP on healthcare, more than 5 points higher than any other… Continue reading Ridiculously high doctor compensation levels in the US
Why talking about the “cause” of poverty is incoherent
Contrary to popular belief, the concept of causation is actually extraordinarily tricky. Once we step out of hard physical sciences (and perhaps even then), attributing a cause to an effect becomes a very difficult matter. Here I go over some of the problems with showing causation and look specifically at the “cause” of poverty. The… Continue reading Why talking about the “cause” of poverty is incoherent
Closing the Social Security shortfall is easy, give it a try
I wrote earlier about the myth of Social Security insolvency back when scaremongering about Social Security was in the news. These days, it looks like Medicare is the new punching bag. It is hard to tell if the right-wing gave up on the Social Security stuff because of how ridiculous it was, or if they… Continue reading Closing the Social Security shortfall is easy, give it a try
The error almost everyone makes about individual economic advancement
Positional advantages are, by definition, unscalable. That is, if all X does is improve your position relative to others, then everyone doing X wont improve everyone’s position relative to others. That’s a bit abstract, so consider some examples. Once upon a time, I went to an orientation for college. When incoming students asked existing students… Continue reading The error almost everyone makes about individual economic advancement