Health care, unemployment, and gifts

Small businesses pay more than large firms for the same health care policies. A quarter of the uninsured are employees in firms smaller than 25 workers.

More, rising unemployment means less health care coverage.

The Game Theorist tells us that gift giving is a bad idea. I'm not sure he's taken all of the externalities into account, though.

Krugman tells us that the health care bill will lean liberal because the facts do. I didn't know facts played such a large part of politics.

Job search, emotions, and graphs.

The average number of weeks in a job search has slightly dropped. 25 weeks is still six months, though. And, remember this is an average. 50% will find a job sooner, and 50% will find a job later.

Calculated Risks shows us some graphs on the projected unemployment rates compared with actual unemployment rates, and with the diffusion index, which roughly measures how widespread job losses or gains are. Things aren't great, but they're not as bad as they could be or have been.

Emotions and the economy. Interesting article. How much could smiling help the recession?

Job openings are at record lows, and the jobless rate by weeks unemployed. This needs to turn around, and fast! In most of the country it isn't getting worse, I suppose.

Health care, global health care, job losses, love, and ham

Myths of health care reform. It seems like there are a lot of scare tactics.

While discussion on domestic health care policy is fierce, Ruth Levine reminds us about global health care policy.

Back here, job loss claims are slightly up, while the overall unemployment rate is down slightly. I'm hoping that we avoid 10%.

Love is worth over a quarter million dollars.

What would your bank do if you offered them wine and ham as collateral?

Job markets, mortgage default rate, credit, and spending

Insight's best and worst job markets. It's nice that the page is continually updated, too.

13%? That's a very high mortgage default rate. And it's not supposed to peak until at least a year from now. CalculatedRisk tells us that the problem is growing to fixed rate prime loans. Yikes! That last link also shows rates per state.

Banks are cutting credit limits for 58 million card holders. I've also heard that they're raising the rates that they charge companies who use their credit card services for payments. This sort of thing isn't a surprise, due to recent credit card reform, and this is probably a good sign.

Here's a neat graphic: how the average consumer spends his paycheck. It's actually a "consumer unit," which is apparently about 2.5 people with 1.3 earners.

Venezuela, China, and land grabbing

Venezuela's inflation (still) isn't doing so hot. No surprises there, right?

Though, China's doing well! (again, still) A lot of countries seem to want to piggy-back on China's growth. Still, no surprises. Investing in China yields better returns than investing in a country with negative growth.

Since bubbles have popped, investors are buying up land in developing countries. Housing isn't bringing in money anymore, so commodities and land is where the money is going. ... So, what happens to the developing countries when this new bubble pops?

Oil and gas prices, health care, university productivity, and Houston power rates

James Hamilton takes a look at oil and natural gas prices. Something has got to give.

PBS has a Frontline report comparing the health programs in five capitalist democracies around the world. Paul Krugman explains why health care can't be solved by the free market. Seems to me that health insurance suffers the tragedy of the commons.

Catherine Rampell at Economix reports on a measure of productivity of universities.

Houstonians: TXU is lowering their rates. They may still not be the lowest for you, but keep an eye out! How's that for price fluctuation?

Macroeconomics, taxes, and auto insurance

Keeping you up-to-date on some of the interesting things around the econoblogosphere.

Another article jumping on the macro-bashing bandwagon. I'd like to see more people offer solutions, or at least helpful criticism. Menzie Chinn offers his insight.

The Wall Street Journal seems to think that executives should pay more in payroll taxes. That's refreshing.

When we're worried about our economic situation, we're willing to try more innovative ways to make society more efficient. Pay-as-you-go auto insurance sure sounds efficient, though people are worried about privacy issues. Presumably, someone knows where you're driving? I think the privacy issue is interesting--lack of privacy might mean more safety. People are less likely to commit crimes if they know they can be easily tracked or caught. Then, people worry that more safety means less free, but I don't know why that necessarily follows.

Bernanke, job growth, healthcare, and fairness

FreeExchange voices their support of Bernanke. I think there hasn't been enough air time given to exactly what he has done and how it has helped the economy in the past year. In a similar vein, the NY Fed has provided a timeline of the financial crisis.

Michael Mandel reports on job growth over the past ten years. The graphs certainly do highlight the stark picture. Outside of healthcare, education, and the government, no sector has grown. Wow.

Donald Marron says that health is an R&D problem. There are a variety of problems with the current system, and a variety of solutions, and we're not sure how effective each solution would be. Marron seems to think we should take baby steps, and evaluate the progress of solutions as we go. An economist who wants more data? Shocking.

Fairness in economics. National economic policy isn't based solely on economic principles, nor are traditional mathematic economic principles the only factors that affect the economy. How people feel about their individual situations also affects their economic behaviors, including how fair they feel they are being treated. In short, we should take some lessons from sociology and psychology. Of course, this harkens back to a famous Keynes quote:

"The study of economics does not seem to require any specialized gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy or pure science? An easy subject at which few excel! The paradox finds its explanation, perhaps, in that the master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher—in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man’s nature of his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near to earth as a politician."

A round on healthcare

In a piece of news that no doubt highlights the need for healthcare reform, healthcare costs are expected to jump 9% for companies in 2010. More on healthcare: an interesting note in the comments section at Angry Bear on Singapore. And, some thoughts on different plans, with links to more information, from ataxingmatter. E.J. Dionne at the Washington Post would prefer to have good rather than bipartisan reform. I was recently thinking about healthcare reform--Democrats (as well as many others, including health economists) claim that they can provide more care to more people while saving a lot of money. I'm not sure what problem the Republicans have with this. So I asked around, and the answer I got was the ideological problem against the concept of socialism. Not only does the argument not apply very well, but public investment hasn't been all that bad, historically. You'd think Republicans could back a single payer option considering all the horror stories of the current state of affairs, and the prospect of saving a lot of money.

Then again, I think it's mostly politics. Republicans can get some of what they want without giving up much political capital. On the other hand, Republicans need to get their names on some successful bills if they want to have a chance of winning back more seats in the future. If Democrats can claim to have fixed the system and saved a lot of money at the same time, what can Republicans run on?

Education, Google monopoly, racism, and behavioral economics

CalculatedRisk has graphs on unemployment rates and wages for different education levels. That things are tough for everyone isn't a surprise, nor is it a surprise that lower education levels are worse off. The degree is pretty striking, though.

Donald Marron lists three defenses Google can use in anti-trust cases. Not only is being a monopolist legal, but Google has a claim on not being a monopoly (in my opinion, the first and third reasons are the strongest ones).

David Henderson argues that free markets reduce racism by making the discriminators bear the cost of their prejudice. That is, if you refuse to do business with a certain type of person, then you're limiting the scope of your own business. On the other hand, if you're willing to do business with anyone, then you can make more money.

Geoff Riley offers his introduction to behavioral economics.

Credit rating, soda tax, education, and political definitions

Free Exchange wonders what we should do about credit rating agencies. Should we have more competition to ensure better, more reliable ratings? Or, will that cause people to just shop around for ratings?

Tim Haab talks about a soda tax, and quizzes us on it. Personally, I wouldn't mind swallowing the three cents per twelve ounces (pardon the pun).

Newmark's Door points to a paper that emphasizes the importance of education in helping low-wage workers. Really, this surprises no one, but it should continue to get airtime as long as there aren't many educational options to low-wage workers.

William Easterly tries to apply more broad definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" to US politics--definitions which hold more internationally. Really, I think this isn't important. In the US, "liberal" and "conservative" are more titles than descriptive adjectives. Though it's good to be aware of what the terms actually mean, it's also good to be aware that the real definitions don't apply.

Maternity leave, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, the world, Venezuela, and the US federal budget

The Economic Policy Institute points out that the United States is severely lacking in maternity leave benefits. I wonder how that affects our national birth rate.

I've heard a lot about problems in Jamaica recently--I was surprised, and I think this article reflects why I was surprised. Socialism doesn't work.

The IMF provides an update on Zimbabwe. As you might expect, things aren't going so well there.

Simon Johnson reminds us that the rest of the world matters, too. Since the US economy is 20-25% of world output, they have an impact on us.

Speaking of the rest of the world, there's apparently some research showing how Venezuela's Chavez has hurt his opposition. This isn't a surprise to those who have been following Venezuela, but it's nice to see the research.

Lastly, the Obama Administration takes a jab at trimming the federal budget.

Family planning, the bottom, help for Geithner, protectionism, and defaults

As history has clearly shown a number of times, economics affects family planning.

A few pieces from Calculated Risk. Orders for durable goods rose in February. Truck tonnage also rose in February. The bottom of the recession may have arrived! Not that it necessarily matters much, anyways. We'll feel the effects of the recession for quite some time.

Thankfully, Geithner may be getting some help, soon. Helen Garrett has been nominated for the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, Michael Barr for Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, and George Madison for General Counsel.

Yet another piece warning against protectionist policies, ahead of the G20 summit. I hope the world leaders get the idea.

Credit card and school loan default rates are on the rise.

Local stuff: UTMB, HOT lanes, and employment numbers

UT-Medical Branch is re-hiring 500 workers, showing the role of expectations and high risk. Due to the risks at the time, UTMB had to lay off the workers, but now the risk has apparently passed.

Houston might be converting many of its HOV lanes to HOT lanes. You can still drive on the lanes for free if you have a passenger, but you can now pay a toll to drive on the lane if you don't. Sounds good for economic efficiency, though I always figured the point of the lanes were to encourage people to carpool, save gas, and produce less smog. I guess we're less concerned about that, now.

Relatively speaking, Houston had pretty decent employment numbers in January.

Going back.

A lot of these are links I've been saving for when I had time to blog about them. So... well, here they are.

A couple of economists at the University of Bristol give some recommendations for econoblogging. If you're interested in picking it up, you may want to read this as a basic guide. A Guide to Blogging in Economics

On the same train of thought, a Canadian economist talks about the value of econoblogging. I think as economies become more dependent on each other, and as they are encountered with global shocks and changes, public knowledge of what's going on, why it's going on, and what the effects are become more important. If economists claim to have a roughly decent idea of what ideal economies looks like, we should make an effort to drive the public in that direction. Even if we can't be forecasters, if we know that more open trade policies lead to greader global growth, we should have a venue to try to convince the public of that. And, if what we believe really is true, we should be able to convincingly argue our points.

Tyler Cowen remarked (some time ago, admittedly, that an economist book club would be good, and that there would be discussion on Keynes's General Theory, section by section. It seemed like a good idea, though I don't know what's come of it. Others seemed to think it was a good idea at the time.Again

Recession Announcements (the official ones, from the NBER):

http://wwwdev.nber.org/dec2008.html

http://www.nber.org/cycles.html

Many others were talking about this, of course, even though it was really not a surprise to anyone, and hardly even news. I don't remember if I linked this article before, but here's a Business Week piece on why it takes so long to official call a recession.

I find news about other economies interesting, in particular when different economies interact. Edward Hugh at Bonobo Land is an interesting source of economic analysis of different countries. I've also been reading a bit about Spain in particular, so I found this piece of Edward's interesting. Lawrence Lux comments on the same blog post.

This bailout comic is, I think, more poignant today than it was when it was first published. And, it relates to a recent blogpost of mine (pardon the self-reference).

A recent defense of Wal-Mart. People who oppose high corporate taxes and support small businesses over large ones confuse me.

A smoking ban in Holland has an interesting effect: smokers merely pay the owner to be able to smoke, so the owner can pay the resulting fine. Sounds pretty efficient to me! "Just paying my Pigouvian tax, thanks."

GM CEO being driven 9 hours from Detroit to DC. Seems like a silly way to support your own business to me.

Crises and protectionism. Leading scholars compile their essays into an e-book every world leader should read.

As bad as the 80s, not the 30s. Time remarks that the talk of the current recession is a bit overdramatic. If this recession becomes even remotely comparable to the Great Depression, it hasn't gotten there yet.

Hey, I didn't know the Economist had a free audio/video page. Neat!

Houston: We're so great.

According to the Department of Labor, Houston has seen the second strongest job growth in the past 12 months. That's really good!

And, if you weren't impressed by that, there's a new book out to tell people why Houston's great. I wonder how widely it'll be distributed.

There are apparently projects to make the city more green, too, at affordable prices. Interesting!

In other news, ConocoPhillips is getting out of retail gas.

Economics is all about how everything is linked to everything else. If you cut taxes for the poor, they can more easily afford education, meaning a more educated populous, meaning a higher skilled workforce, and thusly higher GDP (just as an example). Hurricane Gustav may have hurt parts of Louisiana, but it's also affected the shrimping industry.