New post at Policy Shop. Excerpt: What’s so bizarre about the education focus is that there is a totally dominant strategy for fixing our distributive woes: change our institutions so that the national income is more evenly distributed. This would make dramatic dents in inequality, poverty, and social mobility right now. There is no need… Continue reading Policy Shop: College Isn’t the Answer to Inequality
Policy Shop: How About a U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund?
New post at Policy Shop. Excerpt: Instead of going down either of those routes, I think we should go in a totally novel direction, at least in the short-term. What if there was a way we could reduce the federal deficit and the federal debt without raising taxes and without cutting spending? It seems too… Continue reading Policy Shop: How About a U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund?
What’s more important: a college degree or being born rich?
I previously shared data from Pew’s Economic Mobility Project about social mobility (I, II). As far as income mobility goes, you are 10x more likely to wind up in the richest fifth as an adult if you were born there than if you were born in the poorest fifth. As far as wealth mobility goes,… Continue reading What’s more important: a college degree or being born rich?
Policy Shop: Challenge Inequality by Changing Who Owns Capital
New post at Policy Shop. Excerpt: Although things seem quite gloomy on first glance, they are not nearly as hopeless on a second look. While it is true that pressuring capital owners to give up more of the national income has obvious limits, there are other ways to go about this. Most notably, we can… Continue reading Policy Shop: Challenge Inequality by Changing Who Owns Capital
Two kinds of anti-paternalism
According to Wikipedia, paternalism is a behavior, by a person, organization or state, which limits some person or group’s liberty or autonomy for their own good. Anti-paternalism, it then follows, is the view that we should not limit some person or group’s liberty or autonomy for their own good. In the kinds of topics I… Continue reading Two kinds of anti-paternalism