I was listening to the news recently when I was struck by a connection between two seemingly unrelated stories. The first one was international: Ecuador’s President Jamil Mahuad was forced from office as a result of a prolonged economic crisis.…
In discussing income inequality, understand the nature of the data
Is there anything wrong with the richest 5 percent of families earning six times as much as the poorest 20 percent? What if the disparity were only half that? If there is something wrong with unequal incomes, should the government…
Environmental improvements require complex give-and-take
Environmental consciousness is one of the great developments of the last decades of the 1900s. Before the 1960s, pollution was like that famous quip about the weather: Everybody complained, but nobody did anything about it. That began to change slowly…
Cost of living adjustments are based on false assumptions
Inflation is at one of the lowest levels seen in the last half-century. The federal budget is closer to being balanced than in most of the preceding 30 years. Now is a good time for Congress to take back its…