|
||||
|
Starting in the Colonial Era, New York, Boston and Philadelphia required all fresh meat to be sold by licensed butchers in regulated public markets. New York abandoned public markets in the 1840’s, with disastrous effects on public health. A working paper[1] by economic historian Gergely Baics lays out the story: Travel back in time to 1811, the . . . → Read More: From Public Meat Markets to Derivatives Markets: A Lesson from Old New York This is the scariest book I’ve read since The Day of the Triffids. Back in the ‘70’s, US business monopolization seemed bad, but not getting worse. Spinoffs and breakups balanced mergers. Since then, as documented in Cornered by financial journalist Barry Lynn, global monopolization has rapidly returned us to a new age of robber barons. . . . → Read More: Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction, by Barry C. Lynn Economists conventionally attribute the Great Depression to blunders by the then-new Federal Reserve Bank. According to this story, promoted by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School, after the stock market crash of 1929, the Fed kept interest rates too high, strangling the economy. This story made most economists confident that it couldn’t . . . → Read More: The Great Real Estate Bubble of the Roaring Twenties Mason Gaffney, Groundswell Nov-Dec 2008 (posted 1/29/09) During the Golden Age of Georgist Progressives, roughly 1890 to 1935, lower Michigan stands out as one of the great success stories. Detroit Mayor, then Governor, Hazen Pingree pushed single tax principles. He reformed assessments to emphasize land over improvements, and raised property taxes to provide . . . → Read More: What’s the Matter with Michigan? The Rise and Collapse of an Economic Wonder July 4, 1187. Two knights stood on the ridge watching the rising sun glint off Lake Tiberias. They were hopelessly trapped, the treacherous old rogue, Raynald de Chatillon and his foolish young protégé, Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem. Below, between them and the water, lay the fortress of Tiberias and the . . . → Read More: The Battle of the Horns of Hattin Some years back a neighbor caught a white mouse that had tunneled into a bag of Purina Dog Chow. Perhaps he was an escaped snake lunch. We put him in a 20-gallon terrarium and called him Manny–for Manhattan Mouse, because he was always busy. All day he zipped around, moving his nest . . . → Read More: Mice Economic historians often refer to the period from World War II to the mid 1970′s as the “Great Compression.” During that period, US inequality plunged to its lowest level ever, before reversing. In an earlier Econamici, “The Wedge,” I attributed this plunge to an unprecedented set of redistributive policies: In . . . → Read More: When Affirmative Action was White, by Ira Katznelson I remember, in the fourth grade, snipping colored feathers from construction paper to make my Indian bonnet. That was for the annual First Thanksgiving pageant. Dressed up as Indians and Pilgrims, we paraded around a table loaded with pies and a paper-maché turkey. We recited how the Pilgrims had landed at Plymouth . . . → Read More: The Plague before Thanksgiving As Kevin Phillips recorded in Wealth and Democracy (2002), war has created the opportunity for many great fortunes. Thus the frenzied looting–and disregard for the lives of both US soldiers and corporate employees–displayed in Robert Greenwald’s new film Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers. One small example: drivers shuttle empty mail trucks . . . → Read More: Benefits of Military Spending From the day the war in Iraq became imaginable, my husband and I have not missed a peace march. Nonetheless, as the slaughter continues, I have worried about how the US can extricate itself. Ambassador Peter Galbraith’s book is reassuring, if that’s the right word, that a prompt withdrawal really can’t make . . . → Read More: The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War without End, by Peter Galbraith |
||||
|
Copyright © 2012 Econamici - All Rights Reserved |
||||
