Consider these recent news items: Some dairy farmers in California completed a successful pilot plant to turn manure into much-needed electricity, using a biogas digester and a gas turbine. They are proposing a 15-megawatt plant using the manure from more…
Category: Other
Health, auto insurance both involve tradeoffs
As I write this, I am listening to snippets of debate in the U.S. Senate about what has come to be known as a “patients’ bill of rights.” The only contentious issue involves whether people will be allowed to sue…
Struggles in Argentine economy may hurt U.S. exports and plans for a free trade area
If you heard a giant sucking sound recently, it might have been the gurgle of the Argentine economy going down the drain again. With it may go an economic idea, the currency board, which has enjoyed much popularity among economists.…
Unfair international policies go far beyond the price of pharmaceuticals
Why do people become angry about some issues and not others? Take drug pricing by major pharmaceutical companies. Anger that prescriptions cost more in the United States than in Canada helped elect a U.S. senator in Minnesota last year. An…
Protection for U.S. steel industry just doesn’t make economic sense
President Bush certainly is not afraid to rush into situations where angels might fear to tread. But it is unclear if this willingness to embrace seemingly contradictory policies is due to quiet confidence in his administration’s abilities or to simple…
Lost labor’s impact
“What is the difference between a depression and a recession? A recession is when your neighbor loses her job, a depression is when you lose yours!” Yes, an old joke, but it contains an important truth: Unemployment has very disparate…
This energy policy could’ve done Bush–and us–a lot more good
Poor President Bush is getting hammered as hard on his energy plan by conservatives as by liberals. The libertarian Cato Institute correctly termed the proposals “a smorgasbord of handouts and subsidies for virtually every energy lobby in Washington.” What could…
The Fed funds rate is not the prime, T-bill or mortgage rate
This past Tuesday was one of those days when we who teach economics just have to drop down on our knees and give thanks. The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee met promptly at 9:00 a.m. By 1:30 that afternoon the…
Now the serious talk starts weighing Social Security vs. individual accounts
Would Americans as a whole be better off if the existing Social Security system were partially supplanted by a system of individual accounts? Who would gain, and who would be worse off? How might such a shift affect the national…
Economic indicators are just that–indicators and not precise science
If recent news headlines about the economy seem confusing, don’t worry. The situation is both understandable and normal. Two weeks ago, many economic gurus quoted by the media predicted that the government would show no economic growth for the first…