Better Learn to Do Carpentry

ChatGPT can code better than you ever will.

Artificial intelligence is the same kind of challenge to the (over-) educated class that globalization was to those without a college degree. The factories built in undeveloped countries made More...

#Newnormal: The 50 Hour Family Work Week

Work from home (#WFH) has the potential to restore better family life for some without reducing net income. With two parents working a total of 50 hours at home, they’ll be able both to care for their kids and be as productive as they were when nominally working 80 combined hours in the office an More...

After the Pandemic: A Lot Less Commuting

Predicting Tomorrow is More Fun than Watching Today

Work from Home

I’ve been wrong many times in predicting that remote work-at-home would cut way back on the amount of comm More...

Teach a Person to Fish and…

We all know the Chinese proverb:

“You give a poor man a fish and you feed him for a day. You teach him to fish and you give him an occupation that will feed him for a lifetime.”

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, thinks that robots will do all the More...

Is Border-Adjustment the Answer to Broken US Corporate Tax Structure?

The US corporate tax system combined with globalization turns free trade into unfair trade (see last post). Profits domestic companies make overseas are not taxed until they com More...

The US Corporate Tax Structure Is an Incentive to Send Jobs Abroad

The way the US currently taxes corporate income is toxic for American workers when coupled with globalization. It turns free trade, which I think is a good thing, into unfair trade. It is a bizarre structure which only its parents – lobbyists and those corporations which benefit from it – could l More...

How the Fed and Dodd-Frank Killed Jobs

Every economist worth her or his salt has a theory about why the great recession was followed by a nearly jobless recovery. Historically, lots of jobs are created in a surge when the economy is recovering; didn’t happen this time; many people left the work force and never came back.

I’m n More...

Irene Lesson #4 – You Can’t Spend a Lot of Money When You Don’t Have a Lot of Time

Vermonters already know that the State will spend less than half the amount originally estimated to fix the state roads and bridges decimated by Tropical Storm Irene; this post is for people in the rest of the country who will benefit from the lessons we learned.

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Too Many Employees Means No Jobs

There is only one woman visible in this CNN picture of a Chinese factory. Since the More...

Everything is Shovel-Ready in China

Construction in China happens very quickly; but people with shovels have hardly disappeared. This crew rebuilt a section of road near the Beijing Zoo in a few hours. Possibly it was more efficient More...