From Bloomberg: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage The Universal Basic Income (UBI) is one those economic debate topics that will never be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction, unlike Newtonian gravity, for example, which with the exception of possible quantum gravity, has long been long settled. That’s the problem with the social sciences.… Continue reading Universal Basic Income – Why It Can’t Work in America
Category: Uncategorized
The Minimum Wage Debate
From Bloomberg: The $15 Minimum Wage Will Kill Jobs. Should You Care? I use to care much more, and then I realized that since most predictions by pundits are wrong, it probably doesn’t matter that much. The economy will adapt either way, although there may be some unintended consequences of higher wages, as the article… Continue reading The Minimum Wage Debate
Thomas Hobbes and the Seeds of Liberalism
Hate to break it you, but Hobbes, along with Rousseau, laid the intellectual groundwork for modern liberalism. Hobbes describes men as being naturally vain and selfish. He declares that “whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire that is it which he for his part calleth good; and the object of his hate… Continue reading Thomas Hobbes and the Seeds of Liberalism
The Gift of Autism
Some recent blog posts about autism: Autism, genius, and the power of obliviousness “The A-Word”–when “autism” is used as an insult A distinction must be made between high-functioning and low-functioning autism; this article discusses the former. It seems like in today’s economy and society, autism and or autism-like traits are more of a gift than… Continue reading The Gift of Autism
Sharing Economy Dying? Debunking Salon.com Hype
Good riddance, gig economy: Uber, Ayn Rand and the awesome collapse of Silicon Valley’s dream of destroying your job The problem with Salon articles (and to a lesser extent, Slate) is that there is often a substantial mismatch between the headline, which is often sensationalist, and the rest of the article, and or the argument… Continue reading Sharing Economy Dying? Debunking Salon.com Hype
Not Smart Enough to Succeed: IQ Inequality = Income Inequality
From the Atlantic: Total Inequality Total Inequality is not merely income inequality (although it matters) nor merely wealth inequality (although that matters, too). Total Inequality would refer to the sum of the financial, psychological, and cultural disadvantages that come with poverty. It’s not that the poverty causes psychological and cultural imbalance but rather the poverty… Continue reading Not Smart Enough to Succeed: IQ Inequality = Income Inequality
The Daily View: Prescriptivism , Populism, and Why Democracy Doesn’t Work
In earlier posts I explore the possibility millennials are smarter and less impressionable than earlier generations. Some on the left argue millennials are sloppy at grammar and are careless, but there is an abundance of evidence to the contrary. For example on Reddit this user got rebuked in the comments for his ‘descriptive’ approach to… Continue reading The Daily View: Prescriptivism , Populism, and Why Democracy Doesn’t Work
Voters and Skin in the Game
Soul and skin in the game So voters are irrational, voting based on emotion than ‘good’ policy. This is not new, Bryan Caplan having written extensively about this. But the difference is Caplan uses this as an argument against democracy, whereas Taleb sees it as a strength or feature due to ‘skin in the game’.… Continue reading Voters and Skin in the Game
Against the Elite
It should be fairly obvious to readers that I’m not not a populist nor do I have ‘solidarity’ with populist/collectivist causes, whether it be organized religion, organized labor, political parties, or the ‘middle class’. Individualism within a ‘state‘ and enforcement of ‘rule of law’ (the minarchist approach) is my ‘interpretation’ of ‘Reaction’. Yours may differ.… Continue reading Against the Elite
The Daily View: Economics and Finance Edition
Interesting: Yes, the middle class has been disappearing, but they haven’t fallen into the lower class, they’ve risen into the upper class The middle class is shrinking because they are earning more money, rising to the ‘upper class’. Disagreement: Is the middle class disappearing into the upper class? First, $75,000 household income is hardly “upper… Continue reading The Daily View: Economics and Finance Edition