Sunday, July 31, 2016

"It’s almost like you’re paying to get out of jail" (paying for a service that lets you avoid TSA lines at the airport)

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We all know that time is money and that there are things we would rather do than wait in the TSA line at the airport. So if the opportunity ...
Saturday, July 30, 2016

Who wrote your potential love's online dating profile? (maybe they outsourced it to a professional who specializes in that)

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By Danielle Braff of the Chicago Tribune . Output is greater when we all specialize and then trade. So maybe it should not be a surprise tha...
Friday, July 29, 2016

The Unfairness of Unattractiveness

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See The Unfairness of Unattractiveness by Julian Savulescu. He is the Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics Director, Oxford Uehiro Centre for P...
Friday, July 08, 2016

The unemployment rate rose to 4.9% in June from 4.7% in May (but other stats show no bad news)

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See U.S. Job Growth Roars Back in June: The nation adds 287,000 jobs, the strongest month of hiring since last October, after a disappointin...
Tuesday, July 05, 2016

Odysseus Started The Industrial Revolution

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Factory work may have been a commitment device to get everyone to work hard. Odysseus tying himself to the mast was also a commitment device...
Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Maybe ‘regime uncertainty’ slowing the recovery

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This was my response to an article by columnist Catherine Rampell. It was printed in the San Antonio Express-News. Click here to read it . O...
Saturday, June 18, 2016

Domino's & T-Mobile discover there is no such thing as free pizza. Too many took advantage of offer. They ran out

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See T-Mobile Ends Free Pizza Promotion as Domino’s Runs Out of Dough by Saad Chandna of Bidness Etc. Why the give away in the first place? ...
Thursday, June 09, 2016

Criticizing the selling of Ali's memorial service tickets ignores economic reality

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I submitted this to the San Antonio Express-News At first glance, it might seem awful that some people were selling free tickets they had...
Friday, May 06, 2016

Licensing Laws Are Shutting Young People Out Of The Job Market

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By Ben Casselman of 538 . Excerpt: "A week ago, however, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a trove of new data on licenses — ...
Thursday, April 21, 2016

Are Millennials Buying Cars Again?

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See Millennials are finally arriving in the car market by DEE-ANN DURBIN of AP. Excerpt: "DETROIT (AP) — Millennials were once a sou...
Friday, April 15, 2016

Anxious? High Strung? You Might Be The Ideal Worker

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There was an interesting article a few years ago in the New York Times magazine called Understanding the Anxious Mind by ROBIN MARANTZ ...
Friday, April 08, 2016

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This was a commercial back in 1986. It paints a bleak picture of America in the future, presumably caused by the growing national debt ($2...
Friday, April 01, 2016

Should your company or insurer reward you for meeting exercise goals?

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See Let your boss track your fitness, get an Apple Watch by ANICK JESDANUN of the Associated Press. This reminds me of what economists ca...
Friday, March 25, 2016

The more we build our human and financial capital, the more prepared we are when a downturn comes or to capitalize on other opportunities

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See Oil layoffs are not because companies are greedy . From The San Antonio Express-News, by Christopher E. Baecker, who manages fixed asse...
Friday, March 11, 2016

Do Some Sellers on eBay Have an Edge Over Other Sellers?

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See Male Sellers on eBay Have an Edge Over Women, Study Finds . By PAM BELLUCK of the NY Times. Excerpts: "on average, when men and w...
Friday, March 04, 2016

Amusement Park Changes Its Pricing Strategy

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See Disneyland 'demand pricing' will cost you $5 less on slow days and $20 more when it's busy .  I'm skeptical about Disney...
Friday, February 26, 2016

Okun's Law

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In my macro classes when I talk about how the unemployment rate falls when GDP increases (because greater output usually requires more wor...
Friday, February 19, 2016

Federal Reserve Economists May Have Discovered Another Cause Of Bankruptcy

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See Why You Might Go Bankrupt If Your Next-Door Neighbor Wins the Lottery by Ben Leubsdorf at The Wall Street Journal blog. In case that l...
Friday, February 12, 2016

A Special Valentine's Message On Romantic Love

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The first one is Researchers at AAAS Annual Meeting Explore the Science of Kissing . The following quote gives you an idea of what it is al...
Friday, February 05, 2016

U.S. Economy Added 151,000 Jobs in January; Unemployment at 4.9%

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See Click here to read the NY Times article . One weakness of the unemployment rate is that if people drop out of the labor force they ca...