Doing the Minimum | No Mercy / No Malice
raising the minimum wage, expanding early childhood education, capping executive pay, strengthening unions, and increasing paid parental leave.
Keith Payne • The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Changes the Way We Think, Live and Die
Obviously, we need to make sure that people are well-compensated for their labor, that they’re able to put food on the table, a roof over their heads, an education in their brains, and that they can pay their medical bills without fear of bankruptcy.But a person’s labor can’t grow exponentially, it can’t possibly keep up with exponential growth, so... See more
Packy McCormick • Ownership and the American Dream
THE END OF RAISES Three years after Milton Friedman’s New York Times essay put financial maximization into the bloodstream, a strange thing happened. People stopped getting raises.
Yancey Strickler • This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World
As for boosting growth, my number one recommendation would be much more high-skilled immigration. And then more low-skilled immigration to take care of their kids and help run their errands... I also would deregulate most of the American economy, starting with occupational licensing. I would however keep air pollution and climate change regulations... See more
Noah Smith • Interview: Tyler Cowen, economist and public intellectual
Even better, forget the $300 number and mandate that it has to increase at a rate pegged to GDP growth. Maybe fix the start date at 2020, and then in year X, one third of the difference between year X GDP and 2020 GDP must be given out as basic income. In theory you should be able to get a UBI of $10,000 per person in a few decades without making a... See more
Scott Alexander (slatestarcodex) • Squareallworthy On UBI Plans
Researchers at the University of Chicago and Stanford measured America’s economic growth per person from 1960 to 2010 and concluded that up to two-fifths of America’s increased prosperity during that time can be explained by better identification and allocation of talent.
David Brooks • How the Ivy League Broke America
To illustrate the problem of applying a microeconomic perspective to a macro situation, consider the following. As every entrepreneur knows, employee costs are a major influence on a firm’s profits. Cutting payroll expenses means a more robust bottom line. Accordingly, it is commonly believed that when firms throughout the economy hold down wages,
... See morelevyforecast.com • 2008_Profits_040208
The fact that many American companies are paying paltry wages to workers while lavishing cash on top executives and investors is no happenstance. It's a policy choice. In the United States we have a tax and regulatory environment that rewards that behavior. We can decide to maintain the status quo or change it.