Voter Suppression in San Francisco
Some years ago, before I moved back to Africa, the local ballot in San Francisco had a measure to allow non-citizens to vote in school board elections. At the time, I thought it was another prank proposition like naming the…
Sexist Racist Nazis
I’m a little shocked at the election outcome. Not who won so much, but rather the reaction of people who think of themselves as progressives or liberals. These are people I know. I went to school with them. I worked…
Ebola: The View from 3° 30’ South
I moved to Burundi in February. I work for a small company providing training and micro credit to 30,000 subsistence farmers. Recently, I spoke with several Burundian friends about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. I asked them if they…
The Most Powerful Woman in the World
On February 1st, Janet Louise Yellen, will become the most powerful woman in the world. At the independent Fed, the Chairman must occasionally answer badly informed and sometimes snarky questions from congress but other than a cumbersome impeachment process (see…
The Sources of Inequality
All men are created equal but they do not stay that way for long. As they age the dispersion of incomes increases dramatically. So there are two questions here. Why does this happen and is it a problem? A couple…
Our Debt-Capacity Fishery
Environmental economists have a useful framework to analyze limited but renewable resources. It is called maximum sustainable yield. For a fishery, it measures the number of fish that can be harvested each year without impairing the future viability of the…
The Economics of Immigration
“I pity the poor immigrant Who wishes he would’ve stayed home Who uses all his power to do evil But in the end is always left so alone.” – Bob Dylan 1967 The immigration debate…
Through the Looking Glass
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Now that enough people have made it through the looking glass of www.healthcare.gov, we are beginning to find out more about the…
What Went Wrong? Expectations Matter
Five years ago we found out who was not too big to fail. Lehman Brothers went down on September 15, 2008, with over $600 billion in assets setting off a remarkable chain of events. A few days later John McCain…
How Risky Is Uncle Sam?
The first time I heard the phrase “country risk” associated with the United States of America I was at an international private equity conference in the fall of 2009. I was shocked that European investors were applying analytical techniques to…