As time has passed, more and more people are going to college in the United States. Unfortunately, this is not a good thing. Let’s see why.
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Tag: politics
How Spending Cuts Make Debt Problems Worse
The IMF has a new paper out that confirms what I have long suspected–when a state with a depressed economy reduces spending, the spending cuts lead to sufficient contraction to result in the cancellation of savings for the state. How does it work? Let’s explore.
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Venezuela under Chávez
The 14 year reign of Hugo Chávez as President of Venezeula has come to an end with his death at the age of 58. Chávez is a polarising figure; people in the developed world tend either to love him or hate him. There isn’t a lot of nuanced, considered judgement about Chávez on the internet. So today I aim to fill that gap in our collective literature. Let’s find out what, precisely Huge Chávez did for the Venezuelan state and its people, for good or for ill.
Stark Wars Episode III
It’s time for another (and perhaps the final?) round of the Stark/Studebaker Minimum Wage Debate. For those new to this back and forth, Stark, a broadly Keynesian blogger who has my respect, came out against Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour. I responded to his argument, and since then we have had a back and forth. Stark has done us the service of compiling the relevant posts in order here. Stark took issue with some of the casual terminology I employed in my last post, and in the interval between that one and this one we have messaged back and forth via Facebook to sort out for our mutual benefit precisely what one another means. In some cases, I thought Stark’s terminological criticisms pedantic, but in other cases he was right to press for clarification. Fundamentally, if I write a post and an intelligent person (which Stark is) has trouble sorting out what is meant, that’s on me. Now that we have sorted out our positions, Stark has posted his latest attack on the minimum wage hike, and I think myself ready to take it on. So here goes.
Leave Dennis Rodman Alone
So Dennis “The Worm” Rodman is back from North Korea and he’s made a new friend out of its supreme leader, Kim Jong-un. Rodman was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos about his experience, and Stephanopoulos made no effort to hide his disdain for Rodman’s visit and for the positive things Rodman had to say about his new friend. Typically, I am not bothered by knowledgeable people who talk down or condescend to less knowledgeable people. It is not a particularly kind thing to do, but I understand the frustration of trying to make a point to someone who does not have the requisite intellectual background to receive it in the way one intends. I am however perturbed when an individual is wrongly condescended to by someone with no significant superiority of thought or knowledge. This prompts me to write this post, a defence of Dennis Rodman’s conduct in North Korea.
Benjamin Studebaker 