Economics

I admit I haven't been closely following the progress of Biden's pandemic stimulus bill in Congress, because the back-and-forth arguments exceeded my tolerance for tedium. Nevertheless, I don't think a stimulus is what we need.Let me start by saying that what we need most from a pandemic relief bill is things that make the pandemic stop. More vaccine, more PPE, more … [Read more...] about We Don’t Need a Stimulus

I've fallen behind on my blog reading, so I missed Greg Laden's post a few days ago in which he tries to argue that carbon taxes aren't really taxes. Actually, he seems to prefer to call them a "carbon dividend," which is apparently the trendy new name for this idea. I googled and found this page at the Citizens Climate Lobby which explains it. It's basically a carbon tax -- … [Read more...] about Carbon Dividend/Carbon Tax

On Monday of last week, Harley-Davidson announced that it will be moving production of motorcycles destined for the European Union to somewhere outside the United States. The reason isn't hard to understand: In response to U.S. duties on European steel and aluminum, the EU enacted tariffs Friday on more than $3 billion worth of U.S. goods including bourbon, yachts and … [Read more...] about Trump and the Art of the Vandal

Megan McArdle is one of my favorite columnists, and she has a new gig over at the Washington Post, where she recently wrote an article about a fascinating just-released economics working paper that caught my eye. The authors, Jennifer Doleac and Anita Mukherjee, studied how the opioid addict population has responded to the drug naloxone becoming more readily … [Read more...] about Does Safer Heroin Use Mean More Heroin Use?