I wish John McCain had been with me at the paint store for a lesson in politics, if not in economics. The employee was glum. ‘Yeah,’ he said to the customer ahead of me, ‘a lot of people are not…
Why don’t we auction off public assets? Politics
Economists get it wrong often enough that our smugness is pardonable when events prove us right. This week’s news that the Canadian government got some $4.2 billion by auctioning rights to use radio frequencies for the next generation of cell…
Transit fare hike may be the best in the short run
At the risk of blaspheming, the situation for public transit is ‘$4 gas giveth, $4 gas taketh away, blessed be $4 gas.’ High fuel prices pose hard choices. In the long run, high energy prices favor transit, as many find…
Mortgage giants need some home improvements
Fears about what would happen if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went broke have submerged a more fundamental question: Is the existence of Fannie and Freddie good for our nation? The immediate concerns are not trivial. The fear is that…