Where Does the Untargeted Stimulus Relief Money Go?

Hint: Bitcoin is up 1350% since last March

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Celebrate Labor Day and Essential Workers by Substantially Raising Minimum Wage

The pandemic has shown the flaws in my orthodox conservative economic view.

Fallacy #1. Wages will find their “right” level in a free market

There is an essential asymmetry in the fact that most employers have More...

Don’t Bail Out the Oil Industry (or the Banks)

Economic justice and capitalist principles agree.

We need relief for the people who are laid off or can’t work because the schools are closed and their children More...

Amazon Wants Congress to Suppress Competition

Retail Giant Trying to Prevent Workers It Doesn’t Hire From Getting a Job

It’s great news that Amazon wants to raise its own minimum wage to $15/hour. Shows the economy is growing and workers are more in demand. Companies which compe More...

Let the Market for Domestic Workers Raise the Minimum Wage in the USA

Ever since at least the time of Queen Elisabeth the First, workers have objected to open immigration on the rational economic grounds that “foreign” workers drive down wages. Employers, on the other hand, have always been for open immigration for exactly the same reason. Employees want the protec More...

The Economist Is Right; It Would be a Mistake to Take His Advice

In a New York Times op ed Donald J. Boudreaux, who is is a professor of economics and a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mas More...

Why Government Subsidies Never Make Anything More Affordable

And why we can never get rid of them.

The chart from American Enterprise Institute could almost be this whole post. More...

“Risk free” Investing

TIPS May Be the Answer

Someone I know is coming into a moderate sum of money and asked me how he can invest it “risk free”. He was very clear that he isn’t looking for gain on the investment, just safety; so, although no investment can More...

Dodd-Frank and Me

The Magically Receding Bank Loan

Software companies usually don’t borrow money; I blogged long ago about the loan my old company couldn’t get to buy a switchboard. But in 2011 Mary and I 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...