We can have one without the other
After the signing of the Bretton Woods agreement and the creation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade after World War II, global free trade began a decades long period of expansion, dramatically increasing the role of international trade in the global economy by… Read More »Applying the lessons of George’s Protection or Free Trade, pt 1
There’s a lot to love about RSF, but the thing I appreciate most is its fundamental autonomy. Having spent most of my career with much larger organizations, many of which were baked into almost inconceivably large matrices of federal and state grants and regulations, or… Read More »No Brainer
“No army can stop an idea whose time has come” — Victor Hugo Hugo was referring to the French Revolution, but his quote also nails the unstoppable logic of carbon pricing. Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada wrote, “Climate change is a real and existential… Read More »Pricing carbon is a magic job machine
Why can’t the economy have steady growth and prosperity instead of cyclically falling into recessions and depressions? We can have sustainable growth if we eliminate the cause of the bust. There is one fundamental, though mostly unrecognized, cause of the boom and bust economic cycle:… Read More »How to Prevent the Boom and Bust Cycle
Inspired by a proposal in Martin Adam’s book, “Land: A New Paradigm for a Thriving World”, the Minnesota chapter of Common Ground USA partnered with the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) to explore the feasibility of starting a Municipal Land Trust (MLT) in… Read More »Municipal Land Trusts
The current economic life of New York City is almost unrecognizable when compared to that of just a year ago. Faced with the collapse of the tourist and business travel industries, hotels that reported second quarter occupancy rates surpassing 90% in 2019, failed to hit… Read More »A New But Familiar Vaccine for New York’s COVID Economy
Florida is now debating a measure to impose an excise tax on water extraction by Florida water bottling companies. And there are many questions surrounding this proposal: Is water a natural resource? Is it essential for life? Is water a requirement for advanced civilizations (looking… Read More »Florida Agonistes: Everybody out of the Water?
In a recent New York Times article, The Californians Are Coming. So Is Their Housing Crisis, Conor Dougherty delves into the conundrum of growth and housing problems. He points to the current situation in California and the fact that its residents are fleeing the sunshine… Read More »Relocating? Housing Issues Span the Country.
Remember how Kansas became heaven overnight after they slashed the income tax? Me either. Let’s try again. Setting the stage for an overhaul of a state tax system requires fiddling at the margins of policy rather than blowing up everything at once. So, much as… Read More »Kansas Screwed Up. We Can Too.
The 2020 economic collapse was not due only to the Covid-19 disease, but more to the policy response to the virus. The optimal policy would have been to compensate all persons who suffered a loss. Then the economic losses from Covid-19 would have been shared… Read More »How the US Government Collapsed the Economy, and How to Build It Back Much Better
