Social distancing is giving us a lot of time to think. And except for keeping each other safe from this disease, what could be more useful than trying to learn from the pandemic for the future. This is not a commentary on the abject failure of the Federal government to deal with the pandemic in […]
Readers of Stirring the Pot know that I am deeply concerned about the issues of global climate change and inequality in the United States. Climate change, or the larger issue of global change, is an existential threat to modern human civilization. Inequality strikes at the very heart of the American ideal of “liberty and justice […]
If you have read Stirring the Pot blog very much (thank you), you will have noticed two persistent themes — inequality and the environment. Examples of bogs on inequality include: Class Warfare? Shame on Us The Crisis of Our Age: Part II Welfare Economics Among those on environmental issues are: When Did We Stop Worrying […]
The third post for Stirring the Pot in August 2015 was titled Class Warfare and dealt with the problem of inequality in the United States. It is an issue that I have returned to several times since. Inequality continues to erode the social fabric of this nation and the situation grows worse with each passing […]
I first encountered the idea that the future was something one could study in 1971 from historian Roger Howell Jr. In one way or another, thinking about the future informed much that I have written about since, including here in Stirring the Pot. In my way of thinking about the future, I believe there should […]
Some professional football players have taken to using their prominence as a platform to call for social action. These athletes protest during the national anthem before NFL games, an act by which they are bringing attention to the fact that the promise of America has not been fulfilled for everyone. “Liberty and justice for all,” […]
When I was teaching, I used to joke with students that my classes were particularly demanding because I wanted to be sure they would succeed in the real world so that they could pay for my Social Security checks. Economists are supposed to believe that self interest is the dominant human motivator. I was only […]
In the environmental debates of the 1970s, one common name hurled at environmentalists was to call them “neo-Malthusians.” This dismissive insult was meant to imply that the concern for environmental issues was nothing more than the contemporary application of the failed analysis of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834). Malthus was a classical economist in the tradition of […]
A few years ago I was visiting the museum of a local Maine historical society. When the docent discovered I worked as an economist, he immediately wanted to show me their collection of early currency that had circulated in the community. His assumption was that an economist would, of course, be interested in money. I […]
The trouble with taxes is that no one likes to pay them. We want the services of government (good roads, public schools, national defense, a functioning court system, etc.) but would rather that someone else pay for these things. Yet taxation is necessary in modern society. Taxes are needed to fund what economists call public […]
