In the villages with the mask campaigns, 43% of adults wore masks in public venues and 29% socially distanced, whereas only 13% wore masks and 24% socially distanced in villages that had no campaigns.
In 1940, deaths among those 65 years old and older were 9,719 per 100,000; by 2019, they had dropped to 4,753 per 100,000, a decline of over 50%.
A bit of background: Afghanistan is a tribal society dominated by tribal leaders and subject to tribal conflicts. This makes establishing an effective national government difficult.
Most obviously, the eviction moratorium protects the housing security of millions of Americans who lost their incomes during the pandemic through no fault of their own. However, by distorting the incentives for tenants and landlords, the moratorium also creates some unintended and undesirable consequences.
Value is subjective. This means we cannot know the reasons other people make the choices they make.
The one major fact that will shape labor markets: the underlying change in age demographics in the United States, which has little to do with either ideology or government policy.
A hallmark of the nation’s economic policy has been to fix the exchange rate between its currency, the Lebanese pound, and the U.S. dollar, at 1,500L=$1.
Bitcoin’s value is far too volatile. Imagine getting paid in something and having no idea how much it will buy when payday comes.
Residential covenants ensure restrictions on property use originate from homeowners in the neighborhood.
Horwitz reckoned the greatest misconception about economics is that it deals only with material living standards.
We suspect firms relying on $8-an-hour labor will soon find their business models unworkable. They will either die or adopt technological innovations that economize on scarce labor.
Designing good voting procedures is crucial to well-functioning democracy. Rank voting is an interesting option.
Now would be a particularly good time to get rid of Trump’s tariffs, as the economy is experiencing widespread shortages and rising inflation.
It is hard, if not impossible, for the U.S. government to impose criminal sanctions on hackers burrowed in countries openly hostile to the United States, such as North Korea, Russia or Iran.
To the extent Hamas spends some of its resources on providing humanitarian aid, an expansion of the United States’ humanitarian aid enables Hamas to divert some of its resources to expand militarization.
The Treasury and the Federal Reserve are spinning the story that the CPI spike was more a by-product of unique COVID related realities than an underlying indication of a rising rate of inflation.
The problem is not so much a lack of available jobs.
Taxing dividends and capital gains encourages too much consumption and too little savings, which is to the long-term detriment of households and the larger economy.
Inflation is certain to rise unless the Fed removes some of the newly created money from circulation as velocity rises.
Since World War II, the Japanese have made corporate employment a mutual life-long commitment—shareholder interests be damned.
