Time magazine has done our nation a service by publishing Steven Brill’s long article on medical care costs. There isn’t much in the article that people who follow the issue closely didn’t already know piecemeal, but Brill puts things together…
Questions answered about federal budget cuts
The never ending brouhaha over federal fiscal issues has promoted readers to ask good questions. Three common ones are: — “When politicians claim ‘cuts’ are being made, are those actually reductions from what we are spending now or from mere…
Some simple answers are too simple
The advice that “everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler,” often attributed to Albert Einstein, should be heeded by economists. Deciding just where to draw that line between simple and too simple isn’t easy. Two issues…
Players in trade disputes often play both sides
If you want to succeed as the spokesperson for some industry group, the most important thing is that you have to lose all sense of shame immediately. That may be harsh, but it is the reaction I had on reading…