During the height of the Democratic primary season in 2016, Senator Bernie Sanders made news by lamenting “You don’t necessarily need the choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this county.” Bernie asks an interesting economic question – why do we have so many choices between products that are essentially the same thing? Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in 2008 in part for answering this question. Continue reading “Bernie Sanders is Angry About Deodorant and Sneakers”
Category: Economic Mobility
Slow-Boiled By Good Intentions
In case you didn’t know, we surpassed the $20 trillion mark in debt. Like many recent college grads or new homeowners, the United States has piled on more debt than what it brings in every year. In fact, the government debt is larger than the amount of goods and services we produce in a year! In 2016, the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP for the U.S. was around $18 trillion; $2 trillion less than the total debt. Continue reading “Slow-Boiled By Good Intentions”
Oh My Gosh! Just Open A Roth IRA Already!
If you want to be financially secure 30 years from now and you haven’t opened a Roth IRA, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Continue reading “Oh My Gosh! Just Open A Roth IRA Already!”
Oxymoron: Subsidizing Entry-Level Jobs For Teens And Minimum Wage Hikes
The way the moving parts of government, unknowingly, work against each other contributes to the plight of the FKD’d millennial. Continue reading “Oxymoron: Subsidizing Entry-Level Jobs For Teens And Minimum Wage Hikes”
Minneapolis May Experience An Uglier Minimum-Wage Fiasco Than Seattle
Minneapolis recently decided to jump on the minimum-wage bandwagon. This bandwagon is led by the “fight for $15” activists who are attempting to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour for the entire country. Since a blanket minimum wage increase at the federal level is not possible, they are going to localities instead. Continue reading “Minneapolis May Experience An Uglier Minimum-Wage Fiasco Than Seattle”
Winter is Coming. Become Antifragile.
Antifragility is key to navigating the seemingly political and economic winter that is coming. As the wise Jon Snow — of Game of Thrones fame — would say, winter is coming and we know what’s coming with it: robots, shorter work weeks and substantial labor force disruptions. We can either sit around and wait or learn to live with the wildlings and diversify our income streams. Continue reading “Winter is Coming. Become Antifragile.”
Slow on the Move: Prices, Technology and Rent Control
Moving to a new city, particularly in your 20s or 30s, can be a defining moment in your life. Yet people in the U.S. are moving at historically low rates, and you don’t need to look far to see why. Continue reading “Slow on the Move: Prices, Technology and Rent Control”
