“At this moment, in this country, you have no substitute,” was Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s comment to Venezuelan proto-dictator Hugo Chavez last Sunday. When I read that news bit buried in a newspaper section bulging with stories about the U.S.…
Category: Other
Daily life delivers its share of risk, but any response involves trade-offs
Nothing is certain except death and taxes. That old adage may be true, but frequently the unsure, risky happenings in life bother us the most. Daily life does involve risk. Consider the risk of a tire failing catastrophically, as in…
Policy alternatives can help the environment and cost nation less
The environment is a campaign issue in at least one congressional race in Minnesota. Recently I saw a TV commercial that extolled the incumbent Democrat’s pro-environmental record and quoted his Republican challenger as saying that current environmental regulations are “cumbersome.”…
We need more teachers, nurses? We have to pay them more money
The U.S. economy is booming, and labor markets are as tight as they have ever been in the last four decades. This was manifest in a recent Newsweek magazine cover story. “Who will teach our kids?” was blazoned across the…
The Nobel laureates in economisc are little-known but safe choices
“You win some, you lose some, and some you get rained out.” That pretty much sums up how economics teachers like me, who venture guesses to their students about possible Nobel laureates in economics, felt this morning. The Nobel committee…
Promises sacrifice sound policies to score a few points in the polls
In the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast, Lumierre, the candlestick-butler advises the beast to “make little promises you don’t intend to keep.” It’s great advice if you are a beast wooing a beauty. I just wish political candidates would…
A call to share the global wealth
Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent Harvard University economist, has never been a member of the foreign-aid establishment and has recently become an outspoken critic of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Instead, Sachs has spent his career jetting from…
Euro and oil actions are unlikely to have a major effect on market
When should governments act to counter market forces of supply or demand? Liberals would answer: “Whenever a democratic society does not like market outcomes.” Conservatives would say: “Almost never.” Pragmatic economists like me boldly assert: “It depends.” The perennial question…
Voters, take heed: Government can’t have a family-like budget
I once had a colleague who, together with his wife, had six different savings accounts. Each payday they would put a certain number of dollars in the car repair account and other sums in the Christmas, vacation, children’s college, new…
Drug cost plans treat a symptom, not larger problem of health care
“Bush offers prescription drug benefit” is the headline on the front page of my local newspaper recently. On the business page, a story headlined “Health care premiums up 10% to 30%,” notes such increases are “driven largely by escalating drug…