Claim: Social safety nets are intended to provide equality of outcome. What really matters is equality of opportunity. Fact: Social safety nets are intended to provide equality of opportunity (or at least narrow the gap), not the outcome (which is impossible anyhow). Touting “equality of opportunity” often implies that the market provides such equality, and […]
Economics
Free Market Failures
Many have an exaggerated opinion of what markets can achieve. They mistakenly think of markets (and more so, free markets) as some magical force that acts in the best interests of society and makes us all better off in the end. The problem with this assessment is that it is unrealistic and misunderstands how markets […]
Middle Class America & The Government
It’s not uncommon to hear that “we are losing the America we used to be,” and that we are evolving into this socialist nanny state where hard work and innovation are punished and failure is rewarded. That we are doing away with the ethic that made America the place of opportunity that it is/was/is ceasing […]
The Obama Jobs plan vs Republican Jobs Plan
While outright rejecting the American Jobs Act, Republicans claim to have jobs bills of their own–bills which they complain are stuck in the Senate. So what are these jobs bills? They are a series of bills aimed at cutting regulations (mostly environmental). So let’s compare the plans. American Jobs Act (Democratic Party) Popular support […]
Robert Reich: Several Myths about Taxes and Economics
Robert Reich on the 7 biggest lies on taxes, the economy and more. Below is an expansion of what Robert Reich so effectively stated and illustrated in an amazing 2 minutes. 1-Tax Cuts one the Rich Trickle Down to the rest of us 2-High taxes on the rich hurt the economy This is one of the staples […]
Economics: Democratic and Republican
A few years ago, when I first learned that economic history shows that the economy has fared far better under Democratic Presidents, I was stumped. It went against everything I ‘knew’ about politics (in this case, that Democrats were tax-and-spend liberals who wanted to punish success and redistribute the rewards of said success and Republicans […]
Obama’s Stimulus Package – Did it Fail?
Recently Barack Obama announced plans for a second stimulus package. Known as the American Jobs Act. The American Jobs Act website summarizes it this way (read the full PDF here). According to the CBO New Tax Cuts to Businesses to Support Hiring and Investment Cutting the Payroll Tax in Half for the First $5 Million in […]