Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
On NPR’s Marketplace, my favorite radio program, there is an interesting interview with Muhammed Yunus. Mr. Yunus is the founder and director of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The bank describes itself as follows: GB [Grameen Bank] provides credit to the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh, without any collateral. At GB, credit is a…
Charles Wheelen is a respected journalist, author and lecturer. He is currently a lecturer in public policy at the University of Chicago, but he is most famous for his best selling book “Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science.” In his blog, he cites the top ten reasons why health care costs are increasing. While the…
Alex Tabarrok of the Marginal Revolution blog, has an interesting post regarding economics, long known as the dismal science. First off, he has an entertaining excerpt from the Jon Stewart show: Jon Stewart: Uh, the way you’ve explained the tax cuts doesn’t really seem fair. John Hodgman: Fairness isn’t really the point. They don’t call…
The Mises Economics blog notes how George Mason University professors have been using blogs for the past few years. In addition to any individual gain the professors may receive from writing, the blogs give prospective graduate students a way to find out more about the professors with whom they will be colleagues in the upcoming…
The American health care system seems ill. Prices for medical services have continued to outpace inflation during recent history. What is the Healthcare Economist’s diagnosis? Simple, its a case of Baumol’s cost disease. Baumol’s cost disease is a phenomenon which appears in industries which have slow productivity growth over time (see “What ails us” in…
Nearly since its inception, the field of Economics has used preference relationships, utility functions, and complete rationality as the theoretical basis for nearly all of its major findings. Nevertheless, while the homo oeconomicus may preform well in certain contexts, in others areas the hypothesis of completely rational humans has been found to be patently false. …
Jim Hamilton, one of my professors, has a great blog which analyzes current events from a macroeconomic point of view (Econbrowser.com). For instance, in the post “Just how implausible is a gasoline tax,” Hamilton reviews a NYT article which states that while 85% of Americans oppose a gas tax, 59% would support a gas tax…
Paul Merriman one of the few investment advisors I respect. His blog is full of useful information. His advice is simple: Invest in Index Funds. For an average investor, attempting to ‘beat the market’ or is a wasteful endeavor. Index funds diversify risk by allowing investors to hold a large variety of stocks while minimizing…
In the âCapitalism: The Movieâ? in the March 2006 Atlantic Monthly, writer Clive Cook examines why many of Hollywood’s recent releases have been anti-capitalist. Hollywood simply assumes that the public will run to see free-market bashing movies such as: Syriana, Fun with Dick and Jane, Wall Street, Erin Brockovich, The Insider, etc. Why? Cook claims…
When you want to buy a used car, what is the first thing you do? For many, the first step is to look in Kelley Blue Book to see how much one should pay for the desired used car. Now there is a ‘Blue Book’ for real estate: Zillow.com. The San Diego Union Tribune reports…