Globalization is the field on which some of our major societal conflicts—including those over basic values—play out. Among the most important of those conflicts is that over the role of government and...
Economists have a name for these activities: they call them rent seeking, getting income not as a reward to creating wealth but by grabbing a larger share of the wealth that would otherwise have been...
There are two ways to become wealthy: to create wealth or to take wealth away from others.
Misshapen economy creates misshapen individuals and a misshapen society
Why do investors fail to realize that money placed in a mutual fund that tries to pick out-performing stocks is unlikely to yield a better return than money invested in the S&P 500? If fund managers a...
While GDP is the standard measure of economic performance,2 there are other indicators, and in virtually every one, the eurozone’s overall performance is dismal, and that of the crisis countries, disa...
Part of the reason for this is that much of America’s inequality is the result of market distortions, with incentives directed not at creating new wealth but at taking it from others.
Loose money and light regulation were a toxic mixture. It exploded.
But unlike naïve Marxians, we do not believe that economic interests alone drive change. Change is often affected by the evolution of ideas, and particularly of overarching beliefs.54 Once the Enlight...
But Dutch and other European milk producers would like to increase sales by having their milk, transported over long distances, appear to be as fresh as the local product. In 2014 the Troika forced Gr...
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country
There is always a worry that voters will be attracted to populists and extremists who attack the establishment that has created this unfair system21 and who make unrealistic promises of change. Distru...
The newly elected government was told in effect that they had no choice: accept the conditions or your banking system will be destroyed, your economy will be devastated, and you will have to leave the...
Recent research has shown that by far the largest fraction of personal bankruptcies involve the illness of a family member.38
In today’s America the proud claim of justice for all is being replaced by the more modest claim of justice for those who can afford it.
We should remember why those programs were started: before the arrival of Medicare and Social Security, the private sector left most elderly bereft of support, the market for annuities essentially did...
Trickle-up economics can work, even when trickle-down economics doesn’t. Even
To put it baldly, there are two ways to become wealthy: to create wealth or to take wealth away from others.
The eurozone was flawed at birth.
Some thirty years ago, the top 1 percent of income earners received only 12 percent of the nation’s income.13