Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

Raising the minimum wage causes a rise in youth unemployment which means fewer young healthy people in the health insurance pool which leads to higher health insurance premiums which causes public outrage and leads to health insurance price controls which reduces the number of insurance companies offering coverage which produces more bargaining power on behalf of the remaining health insurance companies which leads to lower incomes for doctors which leads [...]

Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — U.S. commercial property values had their biggest monthly rise on record in December as the number of transactions jumped, according to Moody’s Investors Service.
The Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Index climbed 4.1 percent from November, the second straight monthly increase, Moody’s said today in a report. Transaction volume rose more than 75 [...]

Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

President Obama held a press conference yesterday to tout the “success” of the stimulus program on its one year anniversary. The administration has dispatched surrogates around the country to do the same (via Reuters):
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden launched a sweeping effort to convince skeptical Americans that the stimulus has been beneficial on the [...]

Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

From friend of Alhambra John Chapman:
Keynes’ 1936 book is full of some horrible errors from which we have yet to recover.  But his earlier writings, which he unfortunately later repudiated, were in many cases quite good.  His Treatise on Money (1930) is very good in many ways but he changed his mind on things by [...]