NBC News did an experiment in 2014, four years after Obamacare was enacted. They polled half of their sample of Kentucky voters about what they thought of “Obamacare”, and asked the other half about “Kynect”, the Kentucky implementation of Obamacare.…
Yearly Archives: 2018
Republicans hate “Obamacare” but love the policies whereas Democrats love it more than the actual policies deserve
Posted in Health
Why is extreme selfishness funny?
Here is a screenshot of a to-do list that the author undoubtedly meant as a joke, but I wonder why some people would post this kind of thing or find it funny. The first point is being spiteful to his…
Posted in Culture, Philosophy and ethics
An epidemic of fake Trump tweets ironically claiming “Fake News”
Michael Cowen’s friends and official spokesmen have been playing the press for months. Rather than Cowen just telling the Mueller investigation what he knows, he and his allies have been constantly tantalizing the press with all sorts of specifics that…
Posted in Pence2018
New bill would require better measures of median income (plus a lot more)
GDP is a measure of total income in a country. For at least the two decades before 1980, American median income grew about as fast as GDP and Americans below the median income saw faster growth than Americans who were…
Posted in Inequality, Medianism
Government debt hits all-time record. You now owe $63,000!
Although Forbes magazine regularly opines that US government debt is at crisis levels, most Americans don’t seem to care these days. If we divide up the total government debt by the population and adjust for inflation (using the 2018 value of the dollar),…
Posted in Public Finance
International trade and immigration have been getting more popular since Trump was elected
Today Trump and his allies on Fox News claimed to have replaced NAFTA. In reality, his deal only affects a tiny amount of NAFTA trade and legally only Congress can repeal NAFTA. But Trump’s announcement demonstrates his desire to show…
Posted in Globalization & International, Labor
Radical political ideas that could make the world better but can’t get political support
Henry George promoted a revolutionary plan for the tax system that economists generally agree would be more fair and efficient, but 120 years after his death, still (almost) nobody cares about his great idea. Pigouvian taxes are another idea beloved…
Posted in Managerial Micro, Public Finance
Medianism 