Newmark's Door

"No wonder elite colleges are racing to get rid of the SAT, LSAT, and other aptitude tests . . ."

It begins this way:

When did you hear any public figure extol cheap energy as an agent of poverty alleviation? When did you hear any historian describe how coal, and later oil, liberated the mass of humanity from back-breaking drudgery and led to the elimination of slavery? 

(Gated) paper by Bruce Yandle. Here's the abstract:

George Stigler’s pathbreaking 1971 article set forth a clear and testable economic theory of regulation and fundamentally changed how economists and others organized their thoughts about government regulation. Until Stigler’s work appeared, the public interest theory, the notion that elected officials and bureaucrats sought first to respond to the broad public desire for government services, dominated the literature. Stigler changed that and in doing so pushed the public interest theory aside. But there was something lacking in Stigler’s regulation theory that suggests there is still a strong role to be played by the public interest theory. While Stigler argued that politicians respond primarily to private interest demand for their services, it is still the case that politicians must explain their actions to the broad public and must work to make certain that the private interest regulatory benefits they produce are actually delivered. Justification and assurance of delivery are functions that are served in the Bootlegger/Baptist theory of regulation. Because the Bootlegger/Baptist theory combines the demand of two interest groups for the same regulatory service, the result will be more regulation. And the fact that both Bootleggers and Baptists will assist in seeing that regulation benefits are delivered, their activity reduces the cost encountered by politicians when seeking to serve the two groups. Again, more regulation will result.

I believe all economics majors and even some non-economics majors should take a course in Public Choice. 

". . . we have debunked the myth that income inequality is extreme and growing on a secular basis by showing that the Census Bureau measure of income fails to include two-thirds of all federal, state and local transfer payments as income to the recipients and fails to treat taxes paid as income lost to the taxpayer."

John Tamny discusses a much underappreciated societal benefit of "inequality".

Translated for those who need it, inequality is born of democratizing access to essential goods. When you shout about inequality, you’re shouting at the very individuals who are aggressively and intrepidly removing unease from your life.

Over 2016 to 2021, ranked by percentage change. Raleigh-Cary is ranked second.

Piece by noted economist Lee Ohanian. Charters apparently work even on the Left Coast.

Part of the large and increasing discrepancy between the Establishment Survey and the Household Survey is now officially admitted by the Philadelphia Fed.

New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin lays out the startling facts:

Two years into this national disaster, I don’t have a clue about why the president and his team are still doing this. What started as a foolish bid to undo everything Donald Trump did has become a permanent policy that undercuts national security and defies decency. . . . 

More than 5 million mostly unvetted people have entered the United States in the last two years. It is certain that among them are potential terrorists and many members of drug cartels, human traffickers and murderous gangs. 

Good question: "Why are Washington and New York taxpayers subsidizing the app-based food-delivery industry?"