The Post explains: The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a key part of President Obama’s ambitious proposal to limit carbon emissions and reduce global warming while the plan is challenged. . . . The court’s decision does not address the merits of the challenge but indicates justices think the states have raised serious questions. The […]
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
Check out today's outstanding piece in Slate, subtitled "What it’s like making less than $13 an hour to serve $13 beers at one of the biggest games on Earth." It covers not only the author's experience behind the counter, but also the economics of stadium financing and the extraordinary lengths to which many of the concession […]
"We find that the benefits to economic growth are even smaller than those projected with full-employment models, and are negative for Japan and the United States. More important, we find that the TPP will likely lead to losses in employment and increases in inequality," summarize the authors. The report, called "Trading Down: Unemployment, Inequality and Other Risks of the Trans-Pacific […]
This shouldn't be news to regular readers, but last Friday's report reflects the risks associated with for-profit colleges. The report highlights high costs and low job placement rates. The Washington Post has the story.
A recent paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research points to a depressing feature of our society — the economic circumstances of a person's birth exert a pretty strong influence on where they'll end up. Or, as the headline in FiveThirtyEight puts it in its headline describing the trend: "Rich Kids Stay Rich, Poor Kids Stay […]
Financially speaking, that is. Last Friday's episode of NPR's Planet Money goes inside the telemarketing scam based on the premise that workers can work from home and make a great living. The episode includes audio from an actual sales pitch to a woman taken in by the scam. The tactics are awful, but revealing. And […]
Despite the uptick in jobs over the last couple of years, one key respect in which the economic recovery is weak has been its failure to raise workers' wages. This week's January jobs report from the Labor Department is more encouraging on that front, reports the NYT: Last month, average hourly earnings rose by 0.5 percent, […]
… in The Hill, responding to former head of OIRA Cass Sunstein: Delays in new public protections have real consequences. Oil trains around the country continue to explode while new safety measures languish in development. Tainted food outbreaks continue to sicken and kill Americans while rules stemming from the new food safety law have missed […]
We've chronicled the saga of Takata's life-threatening airbags and the resulting government recall. In the latest chapter, Senators Blumenthal and Markey (of Connecticut and Massachusetts, respectively) have written the Obama Administration calling for the recall to be broadened after a horrific death in December: The [Senators'] letter follows the death of Joel Knight, who was […]
How carefully should public institutions monitor their investment portfolios? Is a payday lender as bad a cigarette company? These are some of the questions raised by this L.A. Times op-ed about the fact that the University of California's investment portfolio includes the large payday lender ACE Cash Express. U.C. has engaged in socially conscious investing and accordingly has […]