Ryan Grim reports on an issue becoming evermore widely known:
“The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession, an investigation by the Huffington Post has found.
All the things you use every day started out as good ideas. In the market economy, good ideas are built upon by better ideas. And the results are not just felt in the abstract but become very real to millions.
Richard K. Vedder is professor of economics at Ohio University. He is also the co-author of Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America and Poverty, Income Distribution and the Family, and Public Policy and the American Economy in Historical Perspective.
In an extraordinary piece by Zoe Heller for the New York Times Style Magazine, Rolling Stones front man and financial overseer Mick Jagger talks about (among other things) the business of rock & roll.
This segment of “This American Life” is actually quite good and might be worth assigning to principle of economics classes as an introduction to the topic of money. They begin with “the most stoner question we have ever posed on this show” and they get all the way to including Ron Paul.
Here’s a simple quiz:
For a mayor running for reelection, which situation would cause the most worry?
1. A minor scandal
2. Discussions of the need for a tax increase
3. Delayed snow removal from residential streets
If you live in a northern state, the correct answer (number 3) is obvious.
Now hold that thought.
