Today's Topics: Educational Reform, the Consumer Price Index, and "Economics with Attitude"

If you haven't already, be sure to check out How Economics Can Help You Keep Your New Year's Resolutions.

Onward to today's topics!

Read more...

Today's Topics: The topic economic stories of 2006, humanitarian assistance and political conflicts, and the Laffer Curve.

If you haven't already, be sure to check out How Economics Can Help You Keep Your New Year's Resolutions.

Onward to today's topics!

Read more...

Today's Topics: Milton Friedman on health care and monetary policy, Bush budget deficits, and applying for an academic job in Economics.

If you haven't already, be sure to check out How Economics Can Help You Keep Your New Year's Resolutions.

Onward to today's topics!

Read more...

Today's Topics: The board game Monopoly, the ability to pay, and the importance of seasonality in economic data.

If you haven't already, be sure to check out How Economics Can Help You Keep Your New Year's Resolutions.

Onward to today's topics!

Read more...

Today's Topics: Yield curves and recessions, the Canadian Dollar, and purchasing human organs

If you haven't already, be sure to check out yesterday's topics as well as How Economics Can Help You Keep Your New Year's Resolutions.

Onward to today's topics!

Read more...

The next in a series of FairTax letters from readers. In Pro-FairTax Letter 2 a reader writes:

The FairTax will let us gain in several ways. Gross income is irrelevant under the Fair Tax -- instead of taxing what people report as earnings, the Fair Tax is based on retail purchases. That means money you put into savings, for instance, isn't taxed (1) before you get it or (2) when it earns interest. It also isn't taxed when you spend it on used items or give it to charity -- only when you spend it on new purchases, and even then only after you've spent what amounts to a poverty-level income, so the poor and those on fixed incomes can be essentially exempt from this tax and even come out ahead.

Be sure to check out the rest of the letter.

FairTax Resources
See the article that's caused all the controversy: The FairTax
Five FairTax discussion points: Five Questions for FairTax Supporters
Send me your FairTax thoughts: Feedback Form.

Another flood of FairTax letters has hit my inbox. I'll be posting the better ones all week. In Pro-FairTax Letter 1 a reader writes:

Your article entitled "FairTax - Income Taxes vs. Sales Taxes" left out the major problem with Income Taxes that is resolved by taxing consumption instead - "Embedded Taxes". These embedded taxes are expenses (corporate taxes, self-employment taxes, gift taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and accounting fees to calculate their tax burden), and are a major part of the "cost-of-goods" (along with utilities, labor, and raw materials) that must be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices, in order to make a profit and stay in business.

Be sure to check out the rest of the letter.

FairTax Resources
See the article that's caused all the controversy: The FairTax
Five FairTax discussion points: Five Questions for FairTax Supporters
Send me your FairTax thoughts: Feedback Form.

Helpful reader P.K. Morse sent me a terrific answer to question about the FairTax and used goods I posed in Five Questions for FairTax Supporters

Read more...

Today's Topics: Nobel-Prize rejections, Milton Friedman on Asian stockpiles of U.S. currency, and inefficient subsidies.

This is a new future I plan on having (almost) every day in 2006. In "Economic Discussions of the Day" I hilight recent entries from three different economics blogs that I think will interest visitors to this site. I hope you will find it informative as well as learning about economics-related blogs you may not have visited before.

Onward to today's topics!

Read more...

I think that many of you will find my newest article very useful. In:

"How Economics Can Help You Keep Your New Year's Resolutions"

we see that by using a simple game theory/economics concept with the not-so-simple name of "strategic precommitments" we can meet our New Year's goals. It's a system I personally use and have found to be incredibly successful.