Tough talk on illegal immigration has been a signature issue for both Republican presidential contenders Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz – you’d be hard-pressed to find a voter who hasn’t heard of Trump’s proposal to “build a wall” on the U.S.-Mexico border. But perhaps less well-known are these candidates’ equally damaging and retrograde views […]
Economy
Reporting and analysis on the American economy and economic policy: how markets, monopolies, and public policy shape jobs, wages, and opportunity. Includes our long-running coverage of antitrust and corporate power in The Monopolized Economy.
Posted inEconomy
Why Poor Working Mothers Can’t Get Ahead
Quality child care costs as much as college tuition. Is it any wonder low-income women can’t escape the trap of poverty?
Posted inEconomy, Magazine, March/April/May 2016, The Monopolized Economy
The Real Reason Middle America Should Be Angry
Like many “flyover” cities, St. Louis’s decline is not mainly a story of deindustrialization, but of decisions in Washington that opened the door to predatory monopoly.
Posted inEconomy, Magazine, March/April/May 2016
God Save the Scene
D.C. punk has thrived for decades with the help of churches, activists, and even the library. Can it survive the city’s rapid redevelopment?
Posted inEconomy, Magazine, March/April/May 2016
Why Is Marriage Thriving Among (and Only Among) the Affluent?
Experts struggle to explain one of the biggest drivers of inequality.
Posted inEconomy, Magazine, March/April/May 2016, The Monopolized Economy
Redlining from Afar: How Consolidation Killed Off St. Louis’s Exemplary Minority Lender
Just after Thanksgiving in 1996, a group of 146 St. Louisans, mainly from the black business community, boarded a chartered TWA jetliner and flew to New York City. Their goal? To block the takeover of their hometown Boatmen’s Bank by shutting down the New York Stock Exchange. Led by the St. Louis lawyer Eric Vickers, […]
Posted inEconomy, Magazine, March/April/May 2016
Communication Breakdown: How St. Louis’s Healthy Media Market Declined
In June 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Communications Act, a bill that prohibited radio, telephone, and other media companies from owning more than one broadcast license in a single community. A more diverse set of owners, stations, and channels, Roosevelt reasoned, would yield a wider set of program and service viewpoints, and would protect […]
Posted inEconomy
The Value of Solar
The pricing of distributed solar energy has become the object of fierce struggles: not only in Arizona and Nevada, but in previously generous Germany and Britain. Utilities in US states claim that solar households enjoying net metering are getting a free ride from their unpaneled neighbours – they will still rely on the grid in […]
Posted inEconomy
Trade, Trump, and Downward Class Warfare
A conversation with my Marron Institute colleague Paul Romer yesterday crystallized an idea I’d been toying with for some time. In a nutshell: opponents of taxing the rich have destroyed, on a practical level, the theoretical basis for believing that free trade benefits everyone. The Econ-101 case for free trade is straightforward: Trade benefits those […]
Posted inEconomy
Should You Worry About Stock Market and Housing Bubbles?
Stock market bubbles….basically no. Just save more for the long-run. But housing market run-ups are another matter…. I don’t believe ordinary investors should spend much time wondering if the stock market is overvalued. I’m more cautious when it comes to housing, because a fall in your local housing market can do you greater and more […]
