Economics

Taxpayers Eat Another Solar Energy Flop 0
- Economics
- January 21, 2020
Looks like another federally backed solar energy plant has gone bust. Bloomberg News reports, “A $1 Billion Solar Plant Was Obsolete Before It Ever Went Online.” In 2011 the $1 billion [Crescent Dunes] project was to be the biggest solar plant of its kind, and it looked like the future of renewable power. Citigroup Inc. and other financiers
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Bernie Sanders’ Staffers Don’t Know the Dark Side of Soviet History 0
- Economics
- January 20, 2020
One of Bernie Sanders’ organizers, Kyle Jurek, wants you to believe that Soviet gulags were not so bad. If Sanders gets elected, Jurek assures us reeducation gulags are coming to America for Trump voters and others opposed to Sanders’ socialist agenda. Jurek is no better than a Holocaust denier. Around 3 million people died in
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Why the Minimum Wage Is so Bad for Young Workers 0
- Economics
- January 16, 2020
In today’s political discourse, the minimum wage is frequently mentioned by the more progressive members of Congress. On a basic level, raising the minimum wage appears to be a sympathetic policy for low-income wage earners. Often kept out of the conversation, however, are the downstream effects of this proposal. The consensus among economists has always been that
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Why Does New York’s Bureaucracy Cost So Much More Than Florida’s?0
- Economics
- January 14, 2020
New York and Florida have similar populations of 20 million and 21 million, respectively. But state and local governments in New York spent twice as much ($348 billion) as governments in Florida ($177 billion), as discussed here. New York’s excess includes spending more on handouts such as welfare. Another cause of New York’s high spending is
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Restricting Trade on Endangered Species Just Makes Things Worse 0
- Economics
- January 13, 2020
Every year humans buy and sell hundreds of millions of wild animals and plants around the world. Much of this commerce is legal, but illegal trade and over-harvesting have driven many species toward extinction. One common response is to adopt bans on trading in threatened or endangered species. But research shows that this approach can
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The Magna Carta Offered More Property Protection Than Modern U.S. States 0
- Economics
- January 13, 2020
Eight dollars and 41 cents. About the cost of a Chipotle burrito. That’s how much Uri Rafaeli owed the treasury in Wayne County, Michigan, for property taxes. To get that $8.41, the county took his house and sold it for $24,500 (or about 3,000 burritos.) They kept every penny for themselves. There is a word
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