Oct 16, 2018 | Price Controls
Amazon recently announced that it will raise the hourly wage it pays to a minimum of $15, to the cheering of its workers. CEO Jeff Bezos has also advocated increasing the mandatory minimum wage to the U.S. government—because that “would have a profound impact on the...
Apr 9, 2016 | Price Controls
San Diego won a major victory in its bid to deregulate taxicabs. A California superior court judge ruled against a group of taxi companies seeking to prevent the city from issuing any new taxi permits. IJ intervened in the case to represent two taxi drivers who simply...
Mar 19, 2016 | Economics, Price Controls
Claude Frederic Bastiat (1801-50) — a French classical liberal theorist, political economist and member of the French National Assembly — wrote an influential essay titled “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen.” Bastiat argued that...
Jan 14, 2016 | Price Controls
Michael Hiltzik, a columnist and Los Angeles Times reporter, wrote an article titled “Does a minimum wage raise hurt workers? Economists say: We don’t know.” Uncertain was his conclusion from a poll conducted by the Initiative on Global Markets, at...
Aug 5, 2015 | Economics, MARKETS, Money and Banking, Price Controls
I wrote a story about poor Clarence who retired in 1979, and even poorer Larry who retired last year. I created these characters to challenge the notion of calculating a real interest rate by subtracting inflation. The idea is that the decline of a currency can be...
May 27, 2015 | Business, MARKETS, Price Controls
“The top 25 hedge fund managers made more than all the kindergarten teachers in the country,” declared President Obama in a discussion of poverty at Georgetown University. Calling them “society’s lottery winners,” he proposed to hike their taxes....
Apr 28, 2015 | Price Controls
Californians are experiencing their third year of drought. Headlines read: “Current California Drought Is Driest In State’s History; Scientists Fear ‘Megadroughts’ On Their Way.” “Global Warming Upped Heat Driving California’s...
Dec 20, 2014 | Economics, Free Trade, Price Controls
Have you ever been in an argument about whether we should raise taxes and then someone tosses out a real whopper? “The top tax rate for decades after World War II was over 90% and look how the economy boomed!” Or perhaps you read a Paul Krugman column where he said...
Dec 3, 2014 | Business, Economics, LAW, Price Controls
The battle over minimum wage is raging. Emotions are running hot. Some cities are setting the bar very high. For example, Seattle is mandating a $15/hour wage. Economically, the issue is very simple. Minimum wage laws do not raise anyone’s wage. This is because it’s...
Jan 7, 2014 | Price Controls
There’s little debate among academic economists about the effect of minimum wages. University of California, Irvine economist David Neumark has examined more than 100 major academic studies on the minimum wage. He reports that 85 percent of the studies...
