Tag Archives: politics

Recent New Yorker article, I read, “The Fight Within the American Medical Association“ What I found interesting is the AMA’s history in support and lack of it for better healthcare. It is going both ways while slowly advancing towards Single Payer. Out of necessity, the AMA has started to move closer to the reality of a Single Payer plan. Why now? Commercial healthcare insurance companies and Medicare Advantage are calling the shots on what...

Alex Tabarrok had a great interview on Ezra Klein’s podcast. A lot of it is on what we learn from Mancur Olson about the current capture of US politics by interest groups. Whether it’s property developers or wealthy homeowners or poor renters or big oil, or whatever—these are groups that would trade off $100 of societal benefits for $1 to themselves. What struck me is how, afterwards, Tabarrok reflected on the moral economy, not the political economy, of this rent-seeking: I was especially...

The Minsky Moment In Eastern Ukraine  Oh, I cannot resist taking that phrase from a recent Economist article about the separatist Donbass republics, the Luhansk Peoples’ Republic (LPR), and the Donetsk Peoples’ Republic (DPR). The official recognition by V.V. Putin of their independence brings about the end of the Minsk II Accord negotiations that have been going on since 2015. These accords were supposed to bring peace to eastern Ukraine, but...

Yesterday we saw that libertarian economist Donald Boudreaux applauds Joe Rogan for uncritically “airing ideas” that undermine confidence in COVID vaccines. Why does Boudreaux approve of this?  Since he is a libertarian, you might think it is because misinformation is liberty, or something.  But no.  He claims that vaccine skepticism is actually reasonable (my bold): The bottom line is that vaccination against Covid is today insisted upon with...

RJS, MarketWatch 666, Retail Sales Rose 3.8% in January; Prior Months’ Revisions Boost 4th Quarter GDP Seasonally adjusted retail sales increased 3.8% in January after retail sales for December were revised a bit lower, but November sales were revised somewhat higher…the Advance Retail Sales Report for January (pdf) from the Census Bureau estimated that our seasonally adjusted retail and food services sales totaled $649.8 billion during the...

Libertarian economist Donald Boudreaux began a recent blog post with a quote about the dangers of government censorship, and then offered up this comment:  “Rogan deserves applause for airing ideas about Covid and vaccines that challenge the official “Science.”” Government censorship is dangerous, but this doesn’t mean Rogan should be applauded for credulously (or deliberately) passing on misinformation to his large audience.  Most people...

“Labour v capital in the post-lockdown economy,” The Economist. As prices and wages rise, are workers or firms winning? Pulling a brief article from The Economist. Unlike 2008, Labor is surviving due to stimulus packages in 2020/2021, which petered out in 2008 leaving low wages and restrictive Unemployment Benefits. “An economy-wide measure of corporate margins is rising fast. Dario Perkins of TS Lombard, a financial-services firm, breaks...

Reading the first few paragraphs of Last War Brain by Noah Smith, I thought I would strongly disagree with his post and decided to write an attempted rebutal. I find that I agree almost 100% and can mainly complain about what I assert is a bit of bait and switch. As always I advise readers to just click the link. Noah is a much better writer than I am (low bar) so my effort to summarize and explain might best be skipped (skip to ***) Noah argues...

Trying To Make Sense Of The Confusion  On the one hand Russian media is telling Russians that Russian troops will leave Belarus when exercises there end on Feb., 20, coinciding with the end of the Winter Olympics, and also sends out videos of troops supposedly being pulled back. OTOH, US officials declared based on reported satellite evidence that 7,000 more troops have gone to “the Ukrainian border” with a chance of Russia invading Ukraine very...

Introduction I am fortunate to have made the acquaintance of Kip Sullivan from reading his articles and exchanging notes over the last couple of years. He is one of the more knowledgeable authorities on Single Payer as well as healthcare costs and price, commercial healthcare insurance, Traditional versus Advantage Medicare, and why today’s healthcare is not working efficiently. For example, commercial insurance administration costs are an...