On KUOW’s Weekday talk program today, Steve Scher, the host, asked if I had any ideas about the “Lesser Depression” I was talking about. I think I have a decent radio voice, but I’m slow on my feet, not nimble. I stalled for time, then mumbled something about Paul Ryan’s [continue reading . . . ]
Anyone who thinks health-care costs can be brought under control ought to be required to read British physician Theodore Dalrymple’s* piece in the Wall Street Journal issue dated April 16. Here’s an excerpt: The British system is now capable of absorbing infinite amounts of money with minimal benefit to the [continue reading . . . ]
Health care in general and Medicare and the Rx drug benefit in particular constitute the asteroid that threatens our financial extinction. Social Security was technically in surplus — taking in more in taxes than its outgo in benefits — until the recent economic unpleasantness. Social Security might attain surpluses again if [continue reading . . . ]
from Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff in the Financial Times, April 5, p. 13 Even if today’s government bonds seem pristine by the standards of pre-revolutionary France, future scholars will see our tax systems as Byzantine labyrinths funnelling money to powerful interests, creating staggering inefficiencies. They will surely be incredulous to [continue reading . . . ]