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Cowering behind a border wall
Over the next few weeks we can expect to hear a lot from Republicans about border security. What we will not hear is any explanation of what border security actually looks like. That’s because border...
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The unemployment rate is overrated
This month’s unemployment report was essentially the same as the last few dozen before it. Unemployment ticked slightly downward again, but much of that decline came from people “leaving” the labor...
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About that commodities bubble…
Two weeks ago I regretted, with some relief actually, that my earlier predictions about a bubble in commodities derivatives seemed to have been inaccurate. More to the point, the oil price collapse...
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Using markets to protect the environment
Operating an industrial boiler requires skill and experience in addition to the significant capital outlay required to obtain them. It also requires something else – adherence to a lengthy set of...
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Perhaps if we understood the minimum wage…
Jeb Bush, who is trying to brand himself as the sane alternative to the Republican Presidential field, just backed the repeal of the Federal minimum wage. So, that’s that. Meanwhile, there is still...
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Oil pressure is building
Oil prices began their collapse almost a year ago, yet the impact to the industry and speculators has been light. There have been no major hedge fund failures. Large energy companies have taken...
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Republicans inch toward a basic income
You really have to wonder what Marco Rubio could accomplish if his political party allowed him to publicly acknowledge reality. Once again, as he did in the immigration debate, Rubio is nudging the...
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Growth of negative-yield bonds
All over the world now you can enjoy the privilege of buying government debt that pays you a negative yield. In effect, you are paying a small premium to the issuing government for the privilege of...
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Unintended consequences of the solar revolution
In 2014, for the second year in a row, solar power was the largest source of new energy in the US. Solar power delivered by utilities doubled last year and the growth is accelerating. Last week, Tesla...
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The European Model
Life in the social democracies of Western Europe is nice…really nice. Beautifully neat, well-organized cities are connected via plentiful and inexpensive mass transit. Work-life balance is an obsessive...
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A 4th Era of Capitalism
A century ago in 1916, after decades of deadly protests, union railroad workers won the right to an eight-hour a day, six-day work week. Other workers would not earn the same rights until 1933. The...
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Income Inequality: Missing the Big Picture
Across a large swath of both the left and right this notion has become so accepted that it is treated as self-evident: a tiny percentage of very rich Americans are reaping all the rewards of global...
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1957
In quiet suburbs white children played on the lawn with Hula Hoops and Slinkies. Teenagers visited the soda shop for a chaste night out. Mothers had dinner on the table when dad came home from work....
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Why I live in a white neighborhood
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sound like you’re a white guy.” In her clipped, Back of the Yards accent, our realtor began to communicate her concerns about our initial choice of...
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Republicans are missing our ride
Wouldn’t it be great for Republicans to line up behind a massively popular force that pits entrepreneurship and innovation against corrupt political interests? Even better, what if that same force was...
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Ending the era of the “job”
When my late grandmother was a girl in rural Arkansas, no one had a job. Everyone old enough to walk and carry a pail worked from dawn to dusk. Work was endless, cruel and utterly universal, but a...
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Beyond jobs
The modern workplace Does capitalism, with its accompanying technological disruptions create more jobs than it destroys? Our conventional wisdom assumes that each new wave of innovation brings new jobs...
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