George Monbiot has an excellent blog post today explaining more clearly and with more citations a point I made a few weeks ago. Everyone should read Monbiot’s post today, but the short of it is this: libertarians have to deny the existence of environmental harm because not doing so sinks their entire property rights ideology.… Continue reading One other reason libertarians fear environmentalists
Author: Matt Bruenig
Piracy really costs the economy nothing
Brad Plumer wrote an article yesterday trying to determine how much online piracy costs the economy. The Movie Picture Association of America claims it costs $20.5 billion per year. Other analyses of the cost — including one from the Government Accountability Office — call that figure absurd. But this debate is completely wrong from the… Continue reading Piracy really costs the economy nothing
Income inequality as a freestanding problem
The New York Times ran an article today about the poor state of social mobility in the United States. Those on the left have been making these points for such a long time that I was almost bored reading through it. As usual, the reactions of bloggers to the post were more interesting. Matthew Yglesias… Continue reading Income inequality as a freestanding problem
The CRS inequality report and rewarding hard work
The Congressional Research Service released a report last week on the causes of the explosion of inequality in the United States. The report analyzes tax policy, wages, capital income, and other factors, then determines to what extent each has contributed to the rising Gini coefficient. Jared Bernstein has the best short breakdown of the results… Continue reading The CRS inequality report and rewarding hard work
How would a “sensible” unemployed person act?
Casey Mulligan blogs about economic issues for the New York Times. He is one of those supply-side economists cut from the University of Chicago cloth (both teaches there and received his Ph.D there). Like the famed Chicago boys, Mulligan almost always toes the simplistic supply-and-demand line, predicting from his armchair how people will behave based… Continue reading How would a “sensible” unemployed person act?