The high cost of prescription medicines and the burden it imposes on some poor households has taken center stage in the 2000 elections, at both the state and federal level. People are unhappy about medicine costs, and candidates from both…
Author: Ed Lotterman
Politicians rhetoric about changes in health care light on substance.
“It’s just wrong to have life-and-death medical decisions made by bean counters at HMOs, who don’t have a license to practice medicine and don’t have a right to play God. It’s time to take the medical decisions away from the…
Politicians deliver glib comments, but voters need to study the truth
Reductio ad absurdum is defined in my “Handbook to Literature” as “a `reducing to absurdity’ to show the falsity of an argument . . . a method of persuasion . . . which carries to its extreme, but logical, conclusion…
History shows U.S. is controlled by the Fed, not the White House
There is an old saying that “man proposes but God disposes.” It means that while humans can plan and attempt to carry out grand schemes, the actual outcome and eventual course of history depend on forces beyond their control. It…
Convention brings gusts of hot air concerning federal fiscal policies
There’s an old saying among English conservatives that “no man’s life or property are safe as long as Parliament is in session.” I don’t believe that, but it seems pretty clear that common sense and reasoned discussion are endangered species…
When free speech disrupts events, a democratic society pays costs
“There is no such thing as a free lunch” is a saying that expresses most economists’ belief that doing anything has a cost, even if only in the sense that pursuing one alternative reduces the time or money to do…
As long as the demand still burns, someone will be making cigarettes
“Wanted: Ambitious, motivated executives for new tobacco-firm startup. Extensive experience in cigarette production, marketing needed. Send resume, salary requirements to Box SD (SureDeath) c/o this newspaper.” Given the multi-billion verdict rendered by a Florida jury this past week, it may…
Life expectency misunderstood
Few factors can have greater effect on an economy than demographic change. We have seen this in the United States, where the population more than doubled during my mother’s life, and in Brazil, where it has nearly quadrupled during my…
Solutions to “save” Social Security have to work in the real economy
In the ongoing public discussion of Social Security, some critics on the political right have taken to calling the program a “Ponzi scheme.” That, of course, refers to the brainchild of the con artist Charles Ponzi, who in 1919 invented…
What is “price gouging” and do we need pricing laws?
The term “price gouging” is suddenly in vogue among politicians and news announcers because of the recent run-up in gasoline prices in the Midwest. But what exactly constitutes “gouging?” Consider the following cases: Paying $12 for two thin slices of…