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COMMENTARIES

Kotlikoff: Why is the FDA Harming our Kids?

Kotlikoff: Why is the FDA Harming our Kids?

Larry Kotlikoff says the FDA is foot dragging on approving vaccines for children, without any defensible reason. FDA-sanctioned adult vaccine trials began in March 2020. Given the crisis, safer and riskier adult-trial phases were run in parallel, with adolescent trials soon thereafter. But the FDA pushed a conservative approach for children, ostensibly to protect them. So pediatric trials were delayed until March 2021 — a full year beyond the start of adult trials. This delay has threatened every American child with long-term morbidity and even mortality.

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The Politics of Health

The Politics of Health

In almost all recent polling, voters say health care is their number one concern.They also trust Democrats more than Republicans on the issue. But why?

Obamacare is the most flawed health system Americans ever created. If you combine the average premium and the average deductible people faced last year, a family of four with Obamacare insurance had to spend $25,000 before getting any benefits from their Obamacare plan. And in most places, the best doctors and the best hospitals are not included in Obamacare plan’s narrow networks.

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The Truth About Inequality

The Truth About Inequality

Inequality is almost universally condemned by the intellectual elite. But most of the rest of the world doesn’t think inequality is such a bad thing. According to polling by Gallup, there are 138 million people in the world today who would like to immigrate to the United States. Most of these people are poor. They tend to live in egalitarian surroundings – they and their neighbors are all equally poor. (The country with the highest percentage of would-be immigrants is Liberia.) Yet they want to come to a country with a great deal of inequality, knowing they would start out at the bottom of the income ladder.

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When Customer Service Becomes Consumer Fraud

When Customer Service Becomes Consumer Fraud

Reasonable customer service is part and parcel of what one is purchasing from our increasingly small number of mammoth retail companies. But Laurence Kotlikoff writes, “Every so often I focus on what seems, from personal experience, to represent “customer support” bordering on consumer fraud.” Examples: AJ Madison, Anthropologie, and Apple.  

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Where Have all the Economists Gone? (Environment)

Where Have all the Economists Gone? (Environment)

What does the average economist know about environmental science? Probably no more than any other reasonably educated person. Yet economists have three talents that are sorely missing from most discussions of environmental policy – particularly policies related to climate change. They understand (1) the scientific method, (2) cost-benefit analysis and (3) how costs and benefits affecting different generations can be evaluated over time. More

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Where Have All the Economists Gone? (Taxes)

Where Have All the Economists Gone? (Taxes)

Joe Biden says that corporations aren’t paying their fair share of taxes. He also says his plan to raise corporate taxes won’t harm anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year. Virtually all economists know these statements are false. Yet, John Goodman thinks there has ever been a time in recent history when there has been such a large gap between what economists know and what politicians say.

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Health Care Components of the $3.5T (Or, Is It $5.5T?) Spending Plan

Where Have All the Economists Gone? (Racism)

June O’Neill, an economist who used to direct the Congressional Budget Office, and her husband Dave O’Neill produced a comprehensive survey of the economic research on this issue almost a decade ago. They concluded that while discrimination may exist, it’s not the main determinant of overall wages and incomes.

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Where Have All the Economists Gone? (Socialism)

Where Have All the Economists Gone? (Socialism)

If you search the economics departments of our nation’s colleges and universities you would be hard pressed to find a real socialist. That’s because economists know a lot about socialism. They have been studying it and thinking about it for over a hundred years. Outside economics departments, things are different. It has often been humorously estimated that there are more Marxists on the faculty of American universities than there are in Russia or China today. How is that possible? John Goodman blames the economists.

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