Defining Poverty
[Chapter Three of The Conquest of Poverty.]
[Chapter Three of The Conquest of Poverty.]
[Chapter One of The Conquest of Poverty.]
The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economics Fought the War of Ideas
by Janek Wasserman
Yale University Press, 2019
xiii+ 354 pages
Noah Smith has a new Bloomberg column titled, “Milton Friedman Got Another Big Idea Right.” Specifically, Smith points to a new paper that apparently confirms Friedman’s famous “plucking model” of recessions. Here’s how Smith contrasts Friedman’s theory from others, including the Misesian theory of boom-bust:
I’m not of the opinion that the American economy is doing amazingly well. However, I’m also not of the opinion that it is falling apart, or that the American middle class is disappearing before our eyes. Nor is there is no one, single, magic statistic we can point to and say “see, we’re all worse off — or better off — now.” Aggregate economic data is by its very nature lacking in nuance. Moreover, different measures of economic growth and prosperity can be conflicting and woefully incomplete.
There’s an escalating government assault on our stem cells and we should all be very concerned about it.
Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s victory on October 27, 2019, has raised many questions about Argentina’s economic future.