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On January 10, the House voted overwhelmingly to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25, the increase to be phased in over the next two years. The Senate has yet to vote on the issue. On January 12, the New York Times published a story by David Cay Johnston that begins, . . . → Read More: The Minimum Wage and the IRS 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 up and down . . . → Read More: Benefits of Military Spending  One comment - (Comments are closed)  Book Review, Essay, Gaffney Link  Cartel behavior, Corruption, History, Military spending, Rent-seeking “Who got the most standby [credit]s from the IMF over the last half century? The answer is Haiti, with twenty-two. And not just Haiti, but the Duvalier family (Papa Doc and Baby Doc), under whom Haiti got twenty of the twenty-two standbys from 1957 to 1986.” “The politics were bad, but the Duvaliers made up . . . → Read More: The White Man’s Burden, by William Easterly Comments are closed Book Review, Essay Corruption, Development economics, Governance, Inequality, Poverty “Just as opening the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes produced both great economic benefits (the North American Midwest could export grains, iron ore, machinery to the world on ocean-going ships) and some undesirable side effects as well (the introduction into the lake system of lamprey eels and zebra mussels), so sending a . . . → Read More: Gangsta-nomics at Harvard |
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