No one likes to pay $50 to gas up a car, but consumers should keep last week’s news of high oil prices in perspective. Oil at $67 per barrel in August 2005 does not mean gas at $2.50 a gallon…
Category: Other
Greenspan shouldn’t coast
When I was in Vietnam, people nearing the end of their tours of duty often focused on it to the point of obsession. Soldiers kept short-timers’ sheets — calendars showing the days left until their return home — and ritually…
Technology transitions carry costs
Even as wind power and other nontraditional means of generating electricity grow in importance, we still need the conventional methods. But who should pay to support those older technologies? The question crops up in many situations where new technologies are…
Even economists driven to consume
My old pickup died Monday evening. My response to this emergency makes for a case study in both micro- and macroeconomics. Micro — how do people decide what to spend their money on? Macro — how is consumer behavior affected…
Who decides the value of preservation?
While mowing patches of thistle in our CRP acres Friday, I glimpsed a fawn before it darted to safety. I also saw jackrabbits, long almost extinct in our area, pheasants and a new beaver dam. It’s satisfying to me to…
Corruption has micro-, macro-effects
Minnesotans don’t have much experience with political corruption. That may be to our credit, but it also hampers our understanding of the effects of corruption when it occurs elsewhere. Two recent cases illustrate how corruption can occur in different guises…
Appointed panel takes heat for politicians
It is a wonder that Osama bin Laden is not occupying the Oval Office. Defense Department officials are some of the most stupid, inept people on the planet. Or so you might conclude from listening to politicians describe recent base-closing…
Hatch-Medica rift teaches economics lesson
Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch has an uncanny knack for raising questions that illustrate fundamental issues in economics. His suit against Medica, which goes to mediation today, is a prime example. It involves a core question in economics: What motivates…
Raise pay for troops in combat
Economics is about incentives. People do things that bring them satisfaction. The incentives can be money or intangible rewards like public recognition or the satisfaction of helping society. Getting people to do dangerous or unpleasant tasks requires greater compensation than…
Terror is “economy of force”
Military tactics and economics are different disciplines, but insights from one can shed light on the other, especially in regard to the recent terrorist attacks in London as well as those in Madrid in 2004 and in New York on…