Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Politics, Standards of Living on Feb 28th, 2013
This is a true story. My income today is 9% lower (in pure nominal terms) than it was a full seven years ago in 2006. Furthermore, if you would compute my expected lifetime income path like our dear “leaders” in DC do, and you would have suggested that my income each year since 2006 “should” […]
Posted in Standards of Living, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Jan 8th, 2013
Since the 1950s, it is clear that American incomes have skyrocketed, and in fact I have argued in classes for years that our income understates this by a good deal. Yet, there is a not insignificant number of laymen and experts alike that believe Americans are no more happy today than they were in the […]
Posted in Standards of Living on Nov 4th, 2012
You may wish to consider that title snarky, but I love living in a world where someone has the incentive, and ability to profit from, delivering me goods and services like this one. Say what you will about the productive capacities of centrally planned economies, it is almost surely the case that no one has the […]
Posted in Politics, Standards of Living on Oct 29th, 2012
I wonder if the planners in America are going to take credit for this awesomeness (and I mean it!): Measures of real consumption based upon the ownership of durable goods, the quality of housing, the health and mortality of children, the education of youth and the allocation of female time in the household indicate that […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Environment, Standards of Living on Sep 29th, 2012
This is sure to be better than any of the pathetic blathering you’ll encounter in the Presidential “debates” which are nothing more than made-for-TV, content-free, beauty contests. McKibben had declared the fossil fuel industry to be immoral, an environmental menace–he had declared open war on the fossil fuel industry–the war was celebrated by the media–and […]
Posted in Fun Facts, Standards of Living on Sep 16th, 2012
What proportion of the American population would be in poverty today if we continued to use the measure of poverty that was established when the War on Poverty was started? Our poverty standards are very much like our air quality standards. Take lead for example. Emissions of lead into the atmosphere today are right at […]
Posted in Fun Facts, Health Care, Standards of Living on Sep 14th, 2012
Here’s a newsflash for you folks. Almost anything that exists on the Earth can be harmful to you. What would happen to me if, for instance, I decided to consume 350 lemons right now? Or, how about a news story I read recently on the damage to human health and well being caused by … […]
Posted in Environment, Inequality, Institutions, Standards of Living on Aug 29th, 2012
The formal environmental movement is a movement of the 1% (OK, perhaps the 20% is fairer). Famously the average income of members of members of the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations is closer to the top 10% of the income distribution than to the middle or bottom of the distribution. I’ll post data on […]
Posted in Standards of Living on Aug 22nd, 2012
Backpacking is tremendously fun. But the biggest downside (for me at least) is that most of the good long trips you’d want to take are too long to carry enough water. If you wanted to do a very long day hike (12+ hours) or a several day overnighter, there simply is no way to carry […]
Posted in ethical foundations, Standards of Living, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Aug 8th, 2012
Before turning my attention to studying Environmental Economics, it never occurred to me that environmental issues were tied so intimately into issues of distributive justice. It makes sense though. For example, since land around a coal power plant is cheap, it may induce lower income families to live near there, and therefore you might expect […]
