The Unbroken Window

If you read Coyote’s site enough, you might wish you had one. Here are three insane items from today: Student loan forgiveness getting serious play … remember that when someone tells you that “universities are non-profits” they might as well be saying, “Qghlm venta hulliamoomoo!”  Websites are going to have to accommodate the disabled. I [...]

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Jonathan Chait: We know that Medicaid makes people happier and less poor. We have trouble proving its impact on their physical well-being because proof of the benefits of medicine remain elusive. Unless we want to stop thinking of basic medical care as a life necessity, and we don’t, the case for Medicaid remains unimpeachable. So [...]

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We run this each year here at the Unbroken Window. I am really sure that this lesson is taught carefully and thoughfully throughout the academy. And I guess it’s some sort of capitalist conspiracy to print this story- we must have made it all up. I was asked the other day by a student if [...]

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So, the WSJ just reported that the Senate has voted overwhelmingly (79-20) to repeal the Medical Device Tax that was part of ObamaCare. This included the votes from among the Bluest of Blue Staters: Here’s Mr. Franken: “The industry is being punished for its innovation and growth.” Or as Ms. Klobuchar put it, “The tax [...]

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We have an article in the UK lamenting the fact that US and western nation foodies and health food advocates are driving up the price of quinoa, a grain grown primarily in poor countries. Without getting into the economics too much, the article suggests that rising world demand raises the price of the grain, making [...]

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JB asked in the comments to an earlier post what we know about who bears the burden of cigarette taxation. A brief exploration of the economic literature reveals the following: (1) The Heterogeneous Geographic and Socioeconomic Incidence of Cigarette Taxes: Evidence from Nielsen Homescan Data Author: Harding, Matthew; Leibtag, Ephraim; Lovenheim, Michael F. Author Affiliation: Stanford [...]

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I vomited after reading this morning’s paper. OK, the vomiting is from a concussion perhaps, or the flu, but the article comes in a close second. Yes, so no tax internet shopping harms some local retailers. The solution? Harm the internet retailers too. That’s government in one lesson. Hobble everyone. And then what do you [...]

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There are generally three types of discrimination (actually four) that may result in some economic actors being left shorthanded (we can define that in future post, but for now just conjure up the mental image of a worker being paid less than he/she “should”).  These are: Employer discrimination: the owners of a firm treat individuals [...]

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Two brief thoughts on this fine morning (for the record I did not buy a Powerball ticket). Someone please explain to me what would happen to the probability of anyone playing the Powerball lottery if the top tax rate on income were raised to 90% or more (In some places I have seen proposals higher). [...]

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I’m allowed to brag about my students. One of my terrific economics students and AHI-Rochester fellow Dan Wang just published his first piece. He is currently an intern for Radley Balko (someone we should spend more time talking about here at the UnbrokenWindow). In any case, please do read Dan’s story of Eminent Domain abuse [...]

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