The Angry Bear

Disposable time as a common-pool resource VII — Common-pool property rights Two key features of Ostrom’s analysis: the distinguishing of a spectrum of separable property rights rather than monolithic “ownership” and the use of a grid that classifies goods according to how difficult it is to restrict access to them and the extent to which one person’s use of a good subtracts from what is left available for others. Schlager and Ostrom identified a...

More Partsanization Of The Environment  The Environmental Protection Agency was founded during the presidency of Republican Richard Nixon, if perhaps with some lack of enthusiasm. The first national cap and trade (or “tradable emissions permits”) system, for SO2, was instituted during the presidency of Republican George H.W. Bush. In 2008, Republican John McCain had an alternative plan to that proposed by Democrat Barack Obama for dealing with...

Last night, Professor Heather Cox Richardson discusses the undermining of a citizen’s civil rights by SCOTUS in support of a state law which allows state citizens to infringe upon the rights of other citizens, female citizens within the state even though the actions of the later cause no harm to the former. It is appearing to be a matter of control supported by a court having known religious beliefs restricting a citizen’s actions in particular...

The Great Resignation and jobless claims Initial and continuing jobless claims continue at or near their best levels in the past half-century. Initial claims declined 43,000 to 184,000, a new 50 year low, while the 4 week average declined 21,250 to 218,750, also a new pandemic low, and in the past 50 years only bettered by the period from late 2018 until February 2020: For all intents and purposes, nobody is getting laid off....

There are to be only three branches of government, the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial; so sayeth the Constitution in Articles I, II, and III. A trinity of man, by man. We were among the first to have broken free of that old ruling triad of the Church, the Army, and the King that at times in previous times had been only the one, the same. We are indeed, a nation born free. Or so we thought. First the nose, then before you know it, the...

Farmer and Agricultural Economic Michal Smith I hear this from time to time both at the market and also from the general public even in the agricultural community. It elicits a response longer than what I can usually muster as I pull my quill of sharpened microeconomic arrows of defense around to meet my macroeconomic bow. I’ve usually already lost most when I say, “well actually it’s cheaper”. The cost of food isn’t the problem. It’s more about...

October JOLTS report: at least the jobs market isn’t getting any worse in disequilibrium The JOLTS report for October was released this morning. While it did not indicate any significant progress towards a new labor equilibrium, at least the trends did not get any more destabilized. Job openings (blue in the graph below) increased to 11.033 million, which remains below the July peak of 11.098 million. Voluntary quits (the “great resignation,”...

Disposable time as a common-pool resource V — Social costs and common-pool resources  The basic idea behind common-pool resources also has a venerable place in the history of classical political economy and neoclassical economic thought. In the second edition of his Principles of Political Economy, Henry Sidgwick observed that “private enterprise may sometimes be socially uneconomical because the undertaker is able to appropriate not less but more...

Disposable time as a common-pool resource VI — Withholding labour Superficially, it might seem that the individual worker can deny access to an employer offering unsuitable terms. But it is here we need to factor in that peculiarity of labour-power noted by the silk weaver, William Longson, that a day’s labour not sold on the day it is offered is “lost to the labourer and to the whole community.” “If his capacity for labour remains unsold,” Marx...