Economics
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On money, nursing home care, and Covid-19.
When we ask the people with the fewest resources to do the hardest work, we often see bad outcomes.
45, asymptomatic, asymptomatic spread, asymptomatic transmission, bungled covid response, coronavirus, coronavirus testing, cost of nursing home care, Covid, covid care, covid deaths, covid medical care, covid nursing home deaths, covid PCR test, covid response, covid school closures, Covid testing, Covid-19, Covid-19 care, Covid-19 epidemic, Covid-19 pandemic, Covid-19 PCR test, Covid-19 response, Covid-19 school closures, Covid-19 testing, data, deaths of despair, delayed medical care, domestic violence, Donald Trump, economic justice, economic modeling, economic study, economics, fair pay, fair wages, fear, Fox News, getting kids back to school, higher wages, higher wages lead to better care, Kristina Ruffini, low wages cause deaths, measuring outcomes, medical care, medicine, minimum wage, New York covid policy, New York Covid-19 policy, New York nursing home policy, nursing home, nursing home care, nursing home deaths, nursing home pay, nursing home staff, nursing home wages, nursing home workers, PCR test, PCR testing, PotUS, quality of life, raise the minimum wage, Ruffini, school closure, school closures, shutdown, spread by people who feel fine, Trump -
On currency
Money is an illusion, but the consequences of not having it are very real.
asset pricing, banking, Bitcoin, Bitcoins, blockchain, Capital, capitalism, central bank, central banking, cum ex, currency, deflation, dentist in jail, dentistry, financial fraud, fiscal policy, fraud, history of money, incarceration, inequality, inflation, investment, investors, jail, jail dentistry, jail poetry, jail poetry class, jail poetry workshop, labor, labor versus capital, monetary policy, money, pulling teeth, QE, quantitative easing, stock market, stock market fraud, tax fraud, tax loopholes, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, teeth pulled in jail, toxic assets, velocity of money, wealth -
On auctions, politics, quantum computing, and waste.
All-pay auctions can make for a fun board game, but these same rules are *horrible* when used for politics.
auction, auction board games, auction games, auction theory, auction types, board game, board games, computer encryption, computer security, cooperative versus competitive board games, cooperative versus competitive games, encryption, Facebook, Facebook advertising, Facebook fraud, Facebook fraudulent political ads, Facebook political ads, Facebook political lies, fraudulent political ads, high speed stock trading, inequality, political contests, politics, quantum computing, security, stock market, wealth extraction, wealth inequality -
On Brett Wagner’s “Apocalypse Blaze.”
Nuclear fallout is a killer. But my friend was felled by the apocalypse that’s already upon us.
addiction, alcohol, Apocalypse Blaze, apocalyptic fiction, Bird Town TN, Bloomington, Brett Wagner, drinking, exposure, futurism, handgrith, hangrith, homelessness, incarceration, jail, jail poetry, meth, methamphetamine, nuclear apocalypse, nuclear fallout, poetry in jail, post-apocalyptic fiction, prison, prison poetry, sobriety, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, unfinished novels, writing in jail -
On taxing robots.
Automation is making the world worse, but the real problem is financial inequality, not robots.
a tax on wealth, automation, charity, cost of pollution, dishwashers, economic proposal, economic recovery, economic stimulus, Eduardo Porter, Eduardo Porter editorial, employer cartel, end of Great Depression, inequality, intentional inefficiency, low salary, low unemployment, negative externalities, New York Times editorial, parenting, politics, recession, robot tax, robotics, robots, robots taking jobs, shared costs, small town recovery plan, stagnant wages, tax wealth, taxing automation, taxing robots, the economics of automation, the politics of automation, tragedy of the commons, unemployment, wealth begets wealth, wealth tax, welfare, which jobs can be replaced by machines, why aren’t wages rising, work requirements, World War II -
On suboptimal optimization.
If you’re hoping that self-driving cars will prevent traffic jams, think again. They might be designed to make traffic worse.
Adam Millard-Ball, AI, artificial intelligence, atomic weapons, automation, capitalism, carbon costs, carbon emissions, carbon emissions from driving, carbon tax, climate change, cost benefit analysis, cost to park, did Heisenberg know linear algebra, driving, economics, finite, finite mathematics, general education requirements, global warming, graffiti that confuses self-driving cars, Heisenberg, Heisenberg and linear algebra, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, intentionally causing traffic jams, linear algebra, linear optimization, math, math panic, matrices, matrix, maximizing utility, minimizing costs, negative externalities, nuclear weapons, parking, parking fees, parking in cities, philosophy, pollution, pollution is free, pricing carbon, pricing externalities, public utility, quantum mechanics, robot cars, robot drivers, self-driving car, self-driving cars causing traffic jams, taxing carbon, taxing emissions, taxing pollution, teaching math, traffic, traffic laws, traffic patterns, trolley problem, university degree, university policies, university policy, usage fees, Werner Heisenberg, why didn’t Germany have atomic weapons, why is it free to pollute, why isn’t pollution taxed -
On alternate truths.
Sometimes the alternatives are jarring – you look and count a certain number, another person proffers a radically different amount. Surely one of you is mistaken. In the United States, there’s a rift between those who overestimate certain values (size of inauguration crowds, number of crimes committed by immigrants, votes cast by non-citizens, rates of…
45, almond milk, alternate truths, alternative facts, anarchy, animal welfare, capitalism, cashew milk, citizenship, civil liberties, crowd size, dairy industry, extremism, free market capitalism, government, government intervention, Henri Taijfel, overestimaters, political philosophy, politics, property rights, psych experiments, psychology, soy milk, Trump, underestimaters, us vs. them, vegan, veganism -
On automation, William Gaddis, and addiction.
An inefficient world might be a much better place to live.
Agape Agape, AI, artificial intelligence, automation, Brian Alexander, Capital, capitalism, corporate managers, corporate takeover, death of small towns, delivery drone, drug prices, economics, evolutionary inefficiencies, Glass House, greed, heroin, human evolution, inequality, investors, J R, Jeff Bezos, jobs that robots can do, JR, labor economics, labor vs. capital, machine learning, Mark Binelli, meth, people want jobs, people want to work, piano roll, player piano, robot doctors, robot lawyers, robot writers, robotics, robots, robots designed by robots, The Michigan Experiment, unemployment, wealth, who should the stakeholders of a school be, William Gaddis








