joshuago’s economics Bookmarks

Why are the enterprise people so confused? Why don’t they just quickly adopt the best products without requiring complex sales processes?

The social value of tags on Del.icio.us is only a happy side-effect. Even though most of the ink spilled about Del.icio.us is about the social value, it’s really not the reason why people use it.

I bet there are some high-income taxpayers whose services you enjoy.

There is no one thing to blame. There is no one fix we can make. It really is multifactorial.

Homeownership contributed to the hollowing out of cities and kept renters out of the best neighborhoods. It fed America's overuse of energy and oil. It made it more difficult for those who had lost a job to find another. Perhaps worst of all, it helped us become casually self-deceiving: by telling ourselves that homeownership was a pathway to wealth and stable communities and better test scores, we avoided dealing with these formidable issues head-on.

Up and down society, people are moving away from commercial, productive activities and toward pleasant, enlightened but less productive ones.

Change that is too arbitrary and too frequent petrifies firms, especially before their rules have been tested in the courts.

Of course, the U.S. is unique. And just as we have the world’s most advanced economy, military, and technology, we also have its most advanced oligarchy.

In times like these, deficit spending to pump up the economy doesn’t make consumers feel more confident; it makes them feel more insecure because they see a political system out of control.

Paul Romer is trying to help the poorest countries grow rich—by convincing them to establish foreign-run “charter cities” within their borders. Romer’s idea is unconventional, even neo-colonial—the best analogy is Britain’s historic lease of Hong Kong.