Articles 2024
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An Economics Nobel For Saving Lives
Bloomberg View, October 15, 2012
Imagine a parallel universe in which federal law prohibited Americans from paying anyone to care for their children, whether in cash or in some other “valuable consideration,” and where paid child care was similarly repugnant and illegal throughout most of the world.In this alternate reality, family bonds would simply be deemed too sacred and children too precious to permit the taint of commercial transactions. -
Case Against More Job Security? It’s Academic
Bloomberg View, September 15, 2012
In the U.S., “middle class” is not just an income category. It’s a cultural norm.That is why people get upset when they read reports that the middle class’s share of total income is shrinking. And it is one reason we get into such vicious debates about what it means not to raise taxes on the middle class. Almost all of us believe we should be among the exempt. -
The Bad History Behind ‘You Didn’t Build That’
Bloomberg View, August 01, 2012
The controversy surrounding President Barack Obama’s admonishment that “if you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen” has defied the usual election-year pattern. -
How the Elites Built America’s Economic Wall
Bloomberg View, July 18, 2012
For a century, incomes became increasingly equal across the U.S., as poor states such as Alabama caught up to rich places like California. -
Boots Were Made for Talking, About Who We Are
Bloomberg View, July 09, 2012
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3-D Copying Makes Michelangelos of the Masses
Bloomberg View, June 14, 2012
The masterworks of three-dimensional art are joining the digital commons. -
Recycling Eyeglasses Is a Feel-Good Waste of Money
Bloomberg View, May 03, 2012
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Delta’s Oil Refinery Plan Flies Against Economic Sense
Bloomberg View, April 19, 2012
Delta seems to be falling for the great fallacy of vertical integration: the belief that the inputs you get from an in-house supplier are cheaper than those you buy in the open market. But this story misses the real cost of those inputs. -
Fight Birth-Control Battle Over the Counter
Bloomberg View, March 07, 2012
Anyone—a local teenager, a traveling businessman, a married mother of four, an illegal immigrant, even a student at a Jesuit university—can walk into my neighborhood CVS any time, day or night, and, for less than $30, buy a 36-count “value pack” of Trojan condoms. -
Save the Oscars With Live Voting and Hindsight
Bloomberg View, February 22, 2012
Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony faces the real possibility of ratings humiliation. The Oscar telecast will almost certainly draw a smaller TV audience than the Feb. 12 Grammy Awards.