A friend was livid when he heard that farmers in the Dakotas and Montana are calling for federal action to force railroads to move grain faster, despite burgeoning oil shipments. “Farmers are the biggest hypocrites,” he said. “They decry wasteful…
Public will pay for minimum wage hike
Let’s take a look at the increase in Minnesota’s minimum wage, passed last week at the Capitol. Wading through the political rhetoric, the economic reality remains: The wage hike largely will be paid for by consumers. It’s a phased-in increase…
All the politics of trade are local, too
Will the European Union hold together? Should the United States join the Trans-Pacific Partnership? When considering these questions, remember that nations enter into international trade pacts for foreign policy reasons, not because their leaders took economics courses in college and…
Balancing economic growth vs. public good
No matter how many photos you have seen, when you walk up to the Roman aqueduct in Segovia, Spain, it is breathtaking. It also inspires questions. How could a civilization with such limited technology and using only human and animal…