David Landes wrote: “Why are we so rich and they so poor?” …most answers to the question … fall into one of two lines of explanation. One says that we are so rich and they so poor because we…
Blog Archives
The Youngest Generation of Workers Are Well Below The Median… And Are They Falling Behind Faster?
The last recession officially ended in the beginning of 2009 because incomes recovered for wealthy elites and their incomes have continued to grow rapidly ever since. But the bottom half of Americans has hardly seen any recovery at all and…
Posted in Medianism
Tax Freedom For Whom?
The Tax Foundation is a mutilitarian organization that tries to get Americans to vote for lower income taxes by promoting “Tax Freedom Day” every year. But they are misleading because income taxes are progressive. The median American does not work…
Posted in Medianism, Public Finance
Richer Kids Have Different Priorities
On NPR, Quoctrung Bui asked, Who Had Richer Parents, Doctors Or Artists?: A few weeks ago, we were sitting around the office arguing over this simple question: Who had richer parents, journalists or people working in finance? Doctors or artists?…
Posted in Inequality, Labor
Don’t Let The BETTER Be The Enemy Of The GOOD, Especially If You Don’t Know Anything Better
I got an email yesterday from Nobel Laureate, Vernon Smith, on behalf of an organization called EconomistLetter.com. They want me to join 150 other economists in signing a letter to stop the proposed minimum wage hike. EconomistLetter.com points out that…
Posted in Medianism, Public Finance
When is equity efficient? Usually.
Updated January 15, 2024 Economics textbooks have been overly obsessed with the idea that greater equity (fairness) usually leads to less efficiency (production of goods and services). Economists typically measure equity as equality of monetary wealth because the typical economist…
It is an equity-efficiency CURVE, not a tradeoff
Economists are obsessed with efficiency which means* the maximum production of goods and services as measured at market prices. Maximizing GDP is the most common form of efficiency worship. The most popular economics textbook, by Greg Mankiw begins by laying…
Medianism 