Joel Rogers, a professor of law and sociology at the University of Wisconsin, calls it “the most important labor law case the court has considered in decades.”
Remember! “Sanctity of contract” never applies if you’re a worker!
Read more...Yesterday, the New York Fed released a new report by Jaison R. Abel and Richard Dietz, Do the Benefits of College Still Outweigh the Costs? which is getting good coverage in the mainstream media. Its major finding is that despite the fall in wages to college graduates due to the crappy economy, a college degree is still worth the expense because wages of high-school graduates have fallen too, keeping the wage premium of a college education high while reducing the opportunity cost of staying in school.
But while the media is repeating the findings of this report uncritically, in fact it relies on a discredited methodology for calculating returns, and also promotes the view that the only reason to get a higher education is to get a better job.
Read more...The New York Times has provided us with an invaluable column about the interactions of the EU’s rightist and ultra-rightest parties. It is invaluable because it is (unintentionally) so revealing about the EU’s right and ultra-right parties and the NYT’s inability to understand either the EU economic or political crises. The NYT article illustrates its points by presenting a tale entitled “A German Voice, Hans-Olaf Henkel, Calls for Euro’s Abolition.” It treats Henkel, an open racist and austerian, as a reputable figure, apparently because he is wealthy.
Read more...The role of lax antitrust enforcement and the resulting rise in oligopolies is sorely neglected in most analyses of the rise of inequality and America’s flagging competitiveness.
Read more...Not only do the long-term unemployed suffer the loss of income, but they often are in worse health. They show markedly higher rates of obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, and high blood pressure.
Read more...Adam Smith’s pin factory is more a charming tale than a representative of early industrialization or contemporary pin making.
Read more...Libertarians are profoundly anti-democratic. The folks at Cato that I debate make no bones about their disdain for and fear of democracy. Friedrich von Hayek is so popular among libertarians because of his denial of the legitimacy of democratic government and his claims that it is inherently monstrous and murderous to its own citizens.
Read more...The recent European elections were a decisive victory for the right, and the craven, co-opted left has no one but itself to blame.
Read more...Larry Summers, like Tim Geithner, wants the public to believe that rescuing banks and leaving citizens to rot was the right crisis response. But neither experts, nor people who followed the crisis, nor voters at large are buying what Team Obama is trying to sell.
Read more...Thomas Piketty’s new book has been widely praised for its empirical contribution, but his prediction of rising inequality rests on economic theory. This column argues that Piketty’s pessimistic forecast is based on an extreme – and unrealistic – assumption about households’ saving behaviour. According to standard theory, the wealth–income ratio would increase only modestly as growth falls, so declining growth would not be a powerful force for generating high inequality.
Read more...David Cay Johnston is a clear and lively conversationalist, and I anticipate readers will enjoy his discussion of his work over the last 20 years on inequality.
Read more...A pending economic incentive deal in Alabama is a case study of why these proposals need hard, skeptical reviews.
Read more...Deflation proves that austerity policies are failing, but the media is doing a remarkable job of keeping readers confused and ignorant.
Read more...A good discussion of why the weak economic recovery has only helped those at the very top, and why economists who know better continue to enable that.
Read more...The Piketty postulate that r > g, meaning the return on wealth exceeds overall economic growth, is simply not a universal truth. This post provides a tidy and accessible debunking.
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