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
Author: Matt Bruenig
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
Why Republicans talk about hardship of parents and grandparents
Chris Hayes and Kevin Drum have been commenting on the odd phenomenon of Republican politicians constantly invoking the hardship of their parents and grandparents. Almost without fail, GOP politicians reach back as far as they need to in their family history to find some story about someone coming from humble beginnings and doing better for… Continue reading Why Republicans talk about hardship of parents and grandparents