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John C. Goodman

Kotlikoff: We Are Not Saving Enough

Kotlikoff: We Are Not Saving Enough

On net, the U.S. is saving just 2.2 percent of our national income. By contrast, the nation’s saving rate was 7.6 percent in the 1980s, 10.3 percent in the 1970s, and 13.0 percent in the 1960s.

The main reason: government policies that take an ever-larger share of resources from young and give them to the old.

Unless baby boomers change their saving habits substantially and relatively quickly, they may experience much higher rates of poverty in their old age than what the current elderly are experiencing.

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The FDA is Preventing a Solution to Covid

The FDA is Preventing a Solution to Covid

With paper-strip tests, Americans could test themselves every day in their own homes, at a cost of $1 to $2 per test. The government could even make the tests available for free. Unlike lengthy swabs and finger prick tests (which cause personal discomfort), paper strip testing involves no more than spitting into a tube or the use of a short nasal swab – with results in a few minutes. By contrast, the standard PCR test currently being used costs from $50 to $100 and sometimes more. Results can take more than a week – and that makes them virtually useless. Also, testing tends to be a one-time, irregular event.

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BofA Behaving Badly – Again

BofA Behaving Badly – Again

Back in April, I wrote about Bank of America’s horrible handling of Payroll Protection Loans…. I received one email after another written by business owners who experienced the same nightmare. I then wrote a column, copying some of these emails, and calling on BofA President, Brian Monyihan, to listen to the truly awful manner in which he and his colleagues were treating his customers, many, like me, who had been customers for decades.

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A Manhattan Project for Covid

A Manhattan Project for Covid

Same-day, time-stamped cell-phone pictures … of negative test — tests, which were approved and supplied to everyone for free by Uncle Sam — would be required to enter the workplace, fly on an airplane plane, frequent a restaurant, enter a store, or attend a school, college, or university. If home tests weren’t perfectly precise, you’d likely need to show several days of negative test results. These requirements would be established by market players, not by government decree.

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Corporate Tax Reform that Pays for Itself

Corporate Tax Reform that Pays for Itself

Republican tax reform could have been better. An ideal reform, originally proposed by Paul Ryan would have produced a of 20.5 percent increase in the nation’s capital stock and a 6.8 percent increase in GDP. Wages would have increased by 6.3 percent for high-income workers and by 7.5 percent for low-income workers. The reasons: a highly elastic global supply of capital, which moves across borders at the first sign of a tax advantage and the inefficiency of the U.S. corporate income tax, which, as of 2014, our year of calibration, had a very high marginal, but very low average tax rate.

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Kotlikoff in the NYT: A Cheap, Simple Way to Control Covid

Kotlikoff in the NYT: A Cheap, Simple Way to Control Covid

Paper-strip tests are inexpensive and easy enough to make that Americans could test themselves every day. You would simply spit into a tube of saline solution and insert a small piece of paper embedded with a strip of protein. If you are infected with enough of the virus, the strip will change color within 15 minutes….  The price per person would be from $1 to $5 a day. The Food and Drug Administration should encourage their development and then fast track approval. 

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Short-Term Insurance Is Not The Problem. It’s The Solution

Short-Term Insurance Is Not The Problem. It’s The Solution

Democrats in Congress are trying to abolish short-term, limited-benefit insurance, but that insurance is on the rise because people want it. Democrats complain that today’s short-term plans don’t cover services people might need.  “What if you get sick and need expensive drugs?” they might ask. The answer is: you drop your short-term plan and enroll in an Obamacare plan. 

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Why We Weren’t Ready For Covid-19

Why We Weren’t Ready For Covid-19

In Chile, people can work and earn as much as they like, even while receiving social security benefits. In Singapore, Switzerland, the Netherlands and other countries, people don’t lose their private insurance coverage if they quit work or change jobs. In Chile’s unemployment system, people don’t lose income when they go back to work. Chile’s disability system, which allows people to go back to work without losing benefit checks, costs about half as much as disability programs cost in the U.S. and in Europe. 

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What’s Wrong with Trump’s Response to Covid?

What’s Wrong with Trump’s Response to Covid?

No national testing policy. A lower number of tests per capita than 27 countries. No nationwide contract-tracing system. No national smartphone App to assist contact tracing. No obligatory, let alone enforced, masking policy. No obligatory, let alone enforced social distancing policy. No nationwide random testing to determine disease prevalence. No requirement that states follow CDC reopening guidelines. No restrictions on large gatherings. And a The-Buck-Stops-There strategy that’s dumped the Covid problem on the states, forced the states to compete against one another and ended up with each state treating residents of other states as pariahs. 

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