It is well known that the fossil-fuel industry has spent millions for many years seeding doubts about climate science, as documented in Naomi Oreskes book, Merchants of Doubt. But later, she discovered that electric utilities started a big propaganda campaign…
Blog Archives
There was no mass democracy before the printing press
In 1900, how many nations were democracies? 0%? 5%? 15%? 30? The correct answer is 0% of nations were democratic in 1900 according to our current standards of democracy. This is because there had never been any sovereign…
Posted in Development, Public Finance
Anarchy, State, and Capitalism
Anarchy is the absence of central government and there are two kinds of definitions. A society without a large-scale government hierarchy that has a monopoly on legitimate force. By this definition, most tribal foraging societies and other small-scale societies have…
Looking to buy cheap land? Here is the cheapest in the USA.
About one-quarter of Americans’ assets are real estate and this map of land values across the USA shows where the most valuable real estate is located: You can make out the outlines of Iowa which has higher rural land value…
Posted in Public Finance, Real Estate
Guns don’t kill people. Alcohol kills people.
Updated. Ok, so my title is goofy sloganeering, but it isn’t any goofier than the common slogan it is based upon. Although the US could certainly save lives by copying some of the gun restrictions that all other industrialized nations…
Posted in Public Finance, Violence & Peace
An unearned wealth tax would help stop rising inequality.
The main source of rising inequality in the US has been the rising incomes of the top 1% richest Americans relative to everyone else. Sure, the top 25% highest-income households have been doing fine, but their incomes haven’t been rising…
Posted in Inequality, Public Finance
The decline of news and news quality
Pew Research reported that “U.S. newspapers have shed half of their newsroom employees since 2008” While print news has lost 36,000 employees, other parts of “journalism” have only added 10,000 for a net loss of 26,000. The BLS predicts that…
Posted in Public Finance
Medianism 