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Now You Should Be Really Fiscally Afraid in California
By: Steven Greenhut
1.16.2010
After reading a recent article I wrote about growing unfunded liabilities for public employee pensions and health care, a reader told me that it made him want to “burn his eyes out with red hot pokers.” Yes, the current situation – expanding debt, growing government, excessive pay and special privileges for government workers, thanks to union power – is not fun to read about. It can be downright scary, when one considers the financial mess that already is looming.
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CBO Underestimates Benefits of Malpractice Reform
By: Lawrence J. McQuillan, Ph.D
10.21.2009
Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said medical-liability reforms could save about $11 billion annually. This assessment is a gross underestimate of the potential benefits of reform and was intended to give cover to congressional Democrats who say malpractice-liability costs are trifling. But a full accounting shows the benefits would be a hefty $242 billion a year, more than 10 percent of America’s health expenditures.
Last year alone, damage awards for medical-malpractice claims reached $5.9 billion. Adding in legal costs, underwriting costs, and administrative expenses, total med-mal tort costs were nearly three times higher — $16 billion. From 1986 through 2002, the average insurance payment for a malpractice claim more than tripled to $320,000. The average jury award for medical liability was $637,134 in 2006.
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Cochrane Threatens Austrians More Than Krugman Ever Did
By: Robert P. Murphy, Ph.D
9.14.2009
Although some Austrian economists (e.g. Mario Rizzo) expressed disappointment with Chicago University economist John Cochrane's response to Paul Krugman's infamous NYT Magazine piece, for the most part the people on "my side" have high-fived Cochrane for kicking sand in Krugman's face.
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Even When Krugman's Right, He's Wrong
By: Robert P. Murphy, Ph.D
8.27.2009
Prashanth Perumal insisted that I comment on this Krugman blog post from January. The reason I didn't comment on it at the time was that my views here are rather nuanced. It's one of those tricky situations where I agree with Krugman that his opponents are wrong, but I deny that Krugman is therefore right.
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Santa Is a Hoosier
By: Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D
8.6.2009
You’d better not pout. You’d better not cry. The real Santa Claus knows if you’ve been bad or good, but when Barack Claus comes to town, he doesn’t care about the past. His eye is on 2010 and 2012 as he steers the reindeer hither and yon, dropping cash (and other things) upon those who promise to be good. And if he shows them the money, they’ll be as good as he wants.
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Christina Romer's Faulty Depression History
By: Robert P. Murphy, Ph.D
7.6.2009
Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers to President Obama, recently wrote an ode to Keynesian deficit spending as a method for curing severe recessions. Yet a simple glance at the big picture shows that the Keynesian story makes no sense.
Keynesian economics, Christina Romer
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Why I Expect Serious Stagflation
By: Robert P. Murphy, Ph.D
6.15.2009
When doing interviews for my new book on the Great Depression, a natural question comes up: will the present crisis turn out as bad as the 1930s? My standard answer is typical for an economist: "yes and no." On the one hand, there were very specific reasons that unemployment broke 25 percent in 1933, and we don't have those factors in place today. So I don't think the official unemployment rate will get anywhere near that catastrophic level, though it could very well come in at the #2 spot in US economic history.
economic stagflation
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The Fed Painted Into a Keynesian Corner
By: Robert P. Murphy, Ph.D
1.22.2008
This morning the Fed announced a surprise rate cut of 75 basis points, the biggest cut in 24 years. Yet the stock market nosedived anyway, with the S&P 500 shedding 1.1% during the session, bringing its total losses to 10.75% for 2008. The Fed is finding that it has lost control over the market: If it stays pat, investors gripe about a credit crunch and stocks plunge, while if it cuts aggressively, then investors assume things are worse than they realized and rush to Treasuries.
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The Writers Strike and Jay Leno's Monologue
By: Robert P. Murphy, Ph.D
1.11.2008
In entertainment news, the excitement this week was the decision by Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel to appear as guests on each other’s show. During Kimmel’s appearance on “The Tonight Show,” the issue came up that Leno himself—in his capacity as a writer and member of the Writers Guild—is prohibited from writing jokes. Incredibly, not only is Leno forbidden from writing jokes for Kimmel…he can’t even write jokes for himself. I’m not exaggerating: The official Writers Guild position is that Leno has permission to do a monologue. But if he writes his own monologue, then he has crossed the picket line.
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How to Make Americans Economically Savvier?
By: Sebastian Wisniewski
12.28.2007
The U.S. housing market is in trouble partly thanks to the economic naivety of many Americans. Real estate buyers, including young first-time home owners, were lured by the low down payments (sometimes none at all) and low interest rates betting that market conditions won't change in an undesired way.
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Total Records: 38
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Business & Economics
