The Dangerous Economist

Since this is finals week and the semester is just about over, I won't be blogging until around Jan 10.

Last week in the San Antonio Express-News, Michael E. Kraft, professor of environmental sciences at the Unviersity of Wisconsin-Green Bay, s...

This is a big issue here. There was an op-ed article on this in the San Antonio Express-News yesterday by John Merrifield, economics profess...

You probably hear alot of bad economic news: the dollar is down, the housing crisis, high oil prices, etc. But there was some good economic ...

It seems that tattoos are now being used for advertising. That means they are furthering the aims of the capitalist, for profit making syste...

Ever wonder how much people paid in income taxes in the past? Some of my students have asked about this. Our current federal income tax bega...

The misery index is simply the inflation rate plus the unemployment rate. The graph below shows how it has changed since 1970. Notice it use...

Student are supposed to get vaccinated against certain diseases. But what if the parents don't take care of it? Make it costly for them ...

He has been charged with four counts of perjury and one of obstruction of justice following a four-year investigation into steroids. But wha...

I talk about the Clean Air Act of 1990 in class and how, like any other regulation, it decreases supply. Any regulation raises costs to prod...

The book is Shopping for God: How Christianity Went From in Your Heart to in Your Face by James Twitchell. You can read reviews of it here ...

If a prospective employer asks you if you're nice, if you get along with others, are you a team player, etc, you will, of course, say ye...

The first federal minimum wage was set in 1938 at $0.25 per hour. As of this past July, it went up to $5.85. It will go up to $6.55 next Jul...

It may not be as obvious as you would think. The CPI was 207.917 in August and 208.490 in September. The 208.49 means that what cost $100 in...

It seems like they work hard and don't want to show off too much. Here are the first two paragrahps from an article titled More U.S. mil...

Maybe you heard that if a player stole a base in the World Series, Taco Bell would give away a free taco to anyone who wanted one on Tuesda...

With revenue from the sales of recordings down in recent years, rock stars are looking for other ways to make money. Sales of CDs are down b...

Seems hard to believe. But an experiment suggests it. The article is Chimps choose more rationally than humans . My student BRUNO MEJIA sent...

When economists use the term "moral hazard" they mean the fact that when people buy insurance, they might not be as careful as the...

Lobbyists in Washington are very busy and their time is valuable. So they don't want to wait in line to get a good seat at a Congression...