Silver or gold can serve as a hedge against inflation, but be wary if anyone tells you they are sure-fire investments. The problem is that anything, whether bread, a haircut or a house, has value only because it meets peoples’ needs or wants. It has no absolute value in itself. The same is true for gold and silver, even though these often are described as having “intrinsic value.” Because...
A year ago, I said that “2011 may be an exciting year but probably not a comfortable one.” Budget problems in Europe, here in Minnesota and in Washington, D.C., bore that out, although things might have been much worse. I continue to be a pessimist about prospects for the national and global economies over the next few years. I think there is a strong likelihood that conditions will be...
Property taxes certainly excite the passions, at least judging by the spate of communications I have received – positive as well as negative – in reaction to columns that I and my counterpart Joe Soucheray wrote recently. Before we move on to other topics, here are a few of the issues that merit additional comment. The central one seems to be whether it is fair that people with more...
Fevered controversies about economic policies often constitute much ado about nothing. That’s because market outcomes often automatically offset things about which people waste much time wringing their hands. At least that is the way economists look at markets – as wonderfully useful social institutions that often are difficult to understand. Take the current debate, here in St. Paul and elsewhere, about whether high real estate taxes will drive homeowners...
Lake Pepin is filling with sediment, slowly but steadily. That hurts Minnesotans and Wisconsinites in particular. Yet, the only policy measures currently available to reduce this are unfair and economically wasteful. This need not be. Twenty years ago, the nation had an opportunity to move to more market-friendly methods of dealing with environmental problems. Economists finally had convinced many Democrats of the advantages of approaches such as emissions taxes...