At a rummage sale, I picked up a book by cartoonist Scott Adams called The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Stupidity in the 21st Century published in 1997. I thought I might find a clever prediction about the future, which we Continue reading
In my mind, the distinct income quartiles rent properties at very different price points, with maybe just a small amount of overlap. But the overlap illustrated here is huge. That’s a narrative violation for me. Continue reading
Mike is concerned that US stocks could be a bubble, as are many others: if we take parallels to the past seriously, there arises the question of whether a 40 year old with a 100% index fund portfolio should consider Continue reading
Back in May 2024, I wrote about grocery prices in 2024 compared to 1980. Relative to average wage increases, almost everything was more affordable the one exception was bacon. Grocery prices have continued to climb since 2024, but so Continue reading
Leopold Aschenbrenner is a very bright guy. Born in Germany to physician parents, he skipped enough grades to graduate from high school at age 15, allowing him to enroll at Columbia University in 2017 at that same age. He went on to Continue reading
At what point does the advice to invest in an index fund and forget about it until you retire become insufficient advice? Because I m not a financial planner. I m not even an active investor. I m an economist who follows the Continue reading
For EconLog, I wrote a reflective piece on Season 2 of Severance and how it relates to the book Wild Problems by Russ Roberts. You Cannot Outsource Life: Severance and Wild Problems (EconLog link) The essay is about pain and Continue reading
I created a non-install windows computer application that lets people identify disabled people on those digital census rolls. If you have students who would benefit from this research experience, then do please let me know! I can approve your institution’s email domain and we can get started. Continue reading
The Congressional Budget Office released a series of posts explaining questions they have about major federal budget policies that past research does not adequately answer. For any economist looking for paper ideas or for a way to influence policy, CBO s Continue reading
A recent poll tells us that 66 percent of Americans think groceries are unaffordable. Is this a reasonable position? Let s add some context. Figure 1 is one way to look at the problem. It shows the cumulative 7-year inflation rate Continue reading