Editorial pages in recent weeks have featured numerous commentaries on faults in the U.S. tax system, inspired no doubt by the fact that income taxes were due April 15. Many pieces expressed alarm that the lower-income half of the U.S.…
Category: Other
Nobelist Prescott’s work resonates on two fronts
The sort of economic work that wins Nobel prizes often is deemed esoteric but sometimes relates much closer to current events than one might think. Two very different items in the news this week relate to the work of Edward…
The climate was just right for crimes of opportunity
If my dear departed aunt heard about myriad cases of fraud, she probably would say ‘Well, it is going around.’ She did not limit her customary response to news of sickness or infectious diseases like measles or chicken pox. It…
Our ability to ignore crop prices, yields is a luxury
It is a measure of how wealthy a society we are that hardly anyone pays attention to farm prices besides farmers. Apparent shortages of basic grains, as happened in 2008 that drove prices to historic highs, disregarding inflation, prompt only…
Regulation of mines a matter of trade-offs
Some 187 miles and 103 years separate the two West Virginia mining towns of Monongah and Montcoal. They are linked by deadly methane gas explosions highlighting economic issues that don’t go away. What role, if any, should government take in…
Despite clamor, consumer finances are still ailing
Here’s a quick rule for evaluating news or opinion about the economy: Be very suspicious when someone uses a lot of hyperbole like ‘soaring,’ ‘slashed’ or ‘plummeting’ to describe changes in the economy. Our nation’s economic problems are serious, but…
Short-term borrowing a risky temptation
A lot of people are tempted to ride the yield curve, but many get bucked off, and some get trampled underfoot. The ‘yield curve’ is just a graph showing the interest rates earned by bonds that mature at different times…
World set to change how it prices ubiquitous steel
At first reading, the front-page headline in the Financial Times on Wednesday, ‘Steel prices set to soar,’ struck me as sensationalistic. The story dealt with how iron ore producers and steel companies will now set prices differently, but there was…
Financial reform requires global efforts
We live in a global economy and if improvements in financial regulation are not coordinated among the governments of the major economies, they will be less effective than they could be. But the way things are going, changes will be…
Penfield not the best use of federal stimulus bonds
Superficially, the idea of the City of St. Paul using federally subsidized bonds to build apartments and a grocery store downtown seems like a bad one. It’s the sort of ‘government-stepping-in-even-where-private-markets-work-pretty-well’ action that gives ammunition to those who believe that…