With the recent election of Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) in Greece, it’s time to revisit the Eurocrisis. I’ll be trying to answer several questions:
Continue reading “Syriza vs. The Troika: What’s Going on in Greece”
There is a huge, gaping hole in the response right-wing politicians are giving to demands that the minimum wage be raised in the United States–they are assuming that employers generally behave in an irrational, inefficient way. Here’s how.
Continue reading “Minimum Wage: Rational Employers are Not Job Creators”
There are two parts of the US economy that have spiraling out of control costs–the health and higher education systems. I propose that these systems experience runaway costs for the same fundamental reason, that they are “high demand markets”. High demand markets differ from other kinds of markets in an important way, and once we understand that health and education are markets of this variety, it becomes much easier to devise and understand the potential efficacy of policy solutions in both areas.
Continue reading “The US Health and Education Systems Have the Same Problem”
We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.
If the French thought their 2012 election of socialist François Hollande over former president Nicolas Sarkozy meant that they would have their Keynes and avoid austerity, they have been proven fatally wrong. Hollande has just announced plans for a €50 billion austerity package, a cut of 4% of France’s GDP. He has promised to cut taxes on businesses by €30 billion, but this will come in the form of the elimination of a requirement that French businesses fund a family welfare program. Based on the IMF’s multiplier estimate for depressed economies (1.5), France will lose 6% in potential GDP growth over the next 3 years under this plan, potentially resulting in a new French recession. Hollande’s argument for this plan betrays a stunning incompetence on economic matters and illustrates that French voters have been played–there was no democratic alternative to Sarkozy in 2012.
Continue reading “The Assimilation of François Hollande is Complete”
Today I’ve been reading around the internet the myriad reactions to the US government shutdown. Seemingly universally, these reactions all assign blame for the shutdown to someone. Most are blaming congressional republicans, but some are blaming senate democrats and the administration, while others are blaming both at once. I wish to challenge this entire way of talking about the government shutdown by arguing that the shutdown is the result of structural forces outside the control of any of the participating factions. I will argue that instead of blaming republicans, democrats, or both, we should blame none of the above. Instead of hating the players, we should hate the game–the political institutions that have failed us.
Continue reading “Shutdown: Don’t Hate the Players, Hate the Game”
Benjamin Studebaker 