There is no pent-up demand
A story on Marketplace yesterday on euphoric shoppers on a spree after getting vaccinated suggests that there is pent-up demand that will explode once the enfor...
Tag: economics
But where will the money come from?
I had to turn off the radio this morning after this stupidity. MARTIN: Where is President Biden going to find more than $2 trillion? HORSLEY: He wants to send t...
How Much Greed is Good?
Paul Graham believes a wealth tax would act as a disincentive. He’s since revised his post several times to remove some indignation. But I’m surprised Mr. G...
Elephants stop shitting. Dung beetles starve.
We are all connected.
A Matter of Life and Death
Here’s a purely hypothetical question for you. Let’s suppose you have a certain number of hospital beds and a certain number of ventilators and a ce...
What if…
What if we helped each other? What if there were no bullshit jobs? What if health care, sick leave, insurance, retirement, …, weren’t tied to your e...
A Simple Rate Tweak Should Do It
Last week, the Federal Reserve and others lowered interest rates in an attempt to counteract the effects of COVID-19 on the economy. Also last week, The Economi...
Living on Margin
Instant gratification is made possible by just-in-time delivery. What if just-in-time never arrives? I have four eggs left in the refrigerator and half a gallon...
Put the responsibility where it belongs: the manufacturer
Finally, someone bothering to talk about whose fault all this plastic crap is. It’s not the consumer’s. It’s the producer’s. Senator Tom...
A New Kind of Credit Card?
A while back Apple announced plans to launch the Apple Card. It launched. A new kind of credit card. Created by Apple, not a bank. Issued by Gold...
What Would You Do?
If money were no object, what would you do? If your income were divorced from your work, what would you do? If you earned the same regardless of occupation, wha...
Against Full-Day Kindergarten
The Common Core State Standards website asks, Q: Why do we need educational standards? A: We need standards to ensure that all students, no matter where they li...
On the Arlington Central School District Budget (2012-2013)
Arlington Central School District budget planning for FY 2012-2013 has resulted in a fairly good budget. I particularly like the appendices that are included fo...
Comments on the Arlington Central School District Budget (2010-2011)
The Board of Education of the Arlington Central School District has made the difficult decision to close an elementary school in order to reduce the district...
Competitive Pricing of Substitutes in Transportation
Nate Silver has an interesting, if partial, analysis of statistics comparing modes of transportation based on the National Household Travel Survey. He wonders w...
Procrastination has its Virtues
I’m presently working on remodeling the upstairs bathroom, and have been for some time. In order to do this on the cheap, I planned to replace the doors a...
What Benefit are Wire Services in a Well-Connected World?
As a former employee of The Associated Press, it’s been somewhat embarrassing to watch their plodding attempts to control data which has already escaped f...
Statistical Enquiry of the Devil’s Playground
Certain laws and regulations, and policies related to those, have a non-trivial impact on statistics which are not normally thought of in concert with those law...