MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'economic policy'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:39:56 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5077945&cid=t_178588_133_f&fid=35452&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.graphictruth.com%2F2011%2F07%2Fjohn-mccain-wakes-up-in-bizarro-world.html I remember back to the dawning of the current Cycle of Unease, the days immediately after the 9/11 attacks.I'd been ignoring politics almost entirely; politics, current affairs, world news and for the reasons most people do.It's boring. Politics are supposed to be boring. Like soccer, golf or Dungeons and Dragons, while it matters a great deal to those who enjoy the sport and great benefits are claimed of it, the rest of us are mostly glad that it keeps those who are interested in such things locked away in oppressively smoke-free rooms, chewing nicorette and trying to look dignified while peeing on one another's shoes.It is not particularly surprising that those who participate in this needful task try to make it seem more significant than it is when in the ideal, it is a mind-numbing rou... Graphictruth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5077945 Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:46:00 +0100 5077945 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4631611&cid=t_178588_133_f&fid=35452&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.graphictruth.com%2F2011%2F03%2Ffuck-off.html (Source: Graphictruth) Graphictruth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4631611 Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:02:00 +0100 4631611 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4294611&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F8gXsFsWep00%2F By Daniel GriswoldMany Americans believe the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high because U.S. multinational companies have been outsourcing and offshoring jobs to low-wage countries at the expense of jobs at home. And they believe this in part because politicians and the media tell them it’s so, even though it isn’t. Consider this story today from the Associated Press under the provocative headline, “Where are the jobs? For many companies, overseas.” Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn’t anyone hiring? Actually, many American companies are–just maybe not in your town. They’re hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat. More than half of the 15,000 people that Caterpillar Inc. has hired this year were out... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4294611 Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:59:12 +0100 4294611 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4105670&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=39187&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgetbetterhealth.com%2Fhealth-insurance-new-survey-reveals-record-number-of-uninsured%2F2010.10.24 Last month the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual survey on health insurance coverage. The results were startling, yet few politicians seemed to take notice: – The number of people with health insurance declined for the first time ever in almost two decades. In fact, as reported by CNN this is the first time since the Census Bureau started collecting data on health insurance coverage in 1987 that fewer people reported that they had health insurance: “There were 253.6 million people with health insurance in 2009, the latest data available, down from 255.1 million a year earlier.” The percentage of the population without coverage increased from 15.4 percent to 16.7 percent. – Almost 51 million U.S. residents had no health insurance coverage at all, a record high, ... Better Health blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4105670 Sun, 24 Oct 2010 22:00:00 +0100 4105670 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4025610&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FMII5tKb42w0%2F By David BoazFree-marketers often point to the varying success of pairs of countries — the United States vs. the Soviet Union, West vs. East Germany, Hong Kong and Taiwan vs. China — to illustrate the benefits of markets over planning, regulation, and socialism. Some even point out the closer but real differences in GDP per capita between the United States and Western Europe. In his 1984 book Endless Enemies (p. 380) Jonathan Kwitny added the less familiar pairs “Morocco versus Algeria, Malaysia versus Indonesia, Thailand versus Burma, Kenya versus Tanzania.” Now Rama Lakshmi reports in the Washington Post that we can see the results of two systems of political economy in one country: It didn’t take long for the first athletes arriving in New Delhi last week f... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4025610 Sat, 02 Oct 2010 20:23:37 +0100 4025610 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3730033&cid=t_178588_133_f&fid=35452&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.graphictruth.com%2F2010%2F07%2Fbuy-democrat-i-mean-invest-in-democracy.html The Washington Post says that the US financial sector is divesting itself of investments in Democratic futures.A revolt among big donors on Wall Street is hurting fundraising for the Democrats' two congressional campaign committees, with contributions from the world's financial capital down 65 percent from two years ago.Donations to Democratic Candidates have fallen precipitously, making this a watershed moment for those with a venture capital approach to democracy.The opportunity now exists for Centre-left coalitions to step in and replace this money. I'm talking to everyone here. This is a potential game-changer. Large chunks of reliable cash are vital to maintaining a Democratic majority, and in order to maintain that cash flow... well, there's an old saying I remember from wa... Graphictruth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3730033 Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:02:00 +0100 3730033 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3515340&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FhwL7bGKw9zM%2F By Neal McCluskeyWith the first round of the so-called “Race to the Top” having produced just two winning states — and those states appearing to have won primarily because they were able to get teachers’ unions to sign onto their reform proposals – there seems to be a growing backlash against RTTT. For one thing, several states are not applying for the second round of RTTT grants. Apparently, many just don’t think jumping through all the RTTT hoops is worth it, especially when, as a welcome new Economic Policy Institute briefing paper illustrates, who wins and who loses is pretty arbitrary. Perhaps the more interesting new ojection to RTTT, though, is that it is, frankly, illegal. So writes the Brookings Institutions’ Grover J. “Russ&#... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3515340 Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:04:47 +0100 3515340 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3403868&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FIF4mb5ideWY%2F By Daniel IkensonOrganized labor’s trade “think tank” in Washington, the Economic Policy Institute, claims that currency manipulation is a major cause of the U.S. trade deficit with China, which (along with other unfair trade practices) accounted for 2.4 million American job losses between 2001 and 2008. EPI has been making similar claims for years, getting lots of media attention for its hyperbole, and providing smoke bombs for charlatan politicians to hurl into the discussion to obscure the public’s understanding of trade.   For starters, as conveyed in this new paper, I am skeptical about the relationship between currency undervaluation and the trade account. EPI’s methodology (to use the term loosely) is not to be taken seriously, though, because it deri... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3403868 Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:20:41 +0100 3403868 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3395112&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F3XDrt0gUkyE%2F By Daniel GriswoldLost in the buzz last week over health care was the news that the broadest measure of the U.S. trade deficit fell sharply in 2009 from the year before. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S. current account deficit plunged from $706 billion in 2008 to $420 billion last year — the smallest deficit since 2001. I’ve been waiting for a few days now for the usual trade deficit hawks to hail this development as great news for millions of Americans looking for work. In years when the trade deficit was rising, it was common practice for the labor-union-friendly Economic Policy Institute to publish detailed studies showing that larger trade deficits caused the U.S. economy to lose hundreds of thousands of jobs each year. For example, according to an October... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3395112 Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:25:33 +0100 3395112 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3026661&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FLSdVyqDClYY%2F Looking for more commentary and analysis from Cato scholars? You can find their own blogs here: Daniel Griswold – Mad About Trade Jim Harper – Washington Watch & Tech Liberation Daniel J. Mitchell – International Liberty Patrick Michaels – World Climate Report Randal O’Toole – The Antiplanner David Boaz – DavidBoaz.com Malou Innocent – Huffington Post Julian Sanchez – JulianSanchez.com Gene Healy – GeneHealy.com Tom Palmer – TomGPalmer.com (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3026661 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:37:15 +0100 3026661 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2249686&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FVsiJMtScOMw%2F I was invited to participate in an email/online/sorta exchange for the Washington Post yesterday.  Unfortunately, the effort was spiked after just a few rounds of emails.  But rather than let my participation go to waste, I thought I’d post one exchange that I think highlights why I’m not just being colorful when I describe supporters of universal health insurance coverage as the Church of Universal Coverage.  I could summarize the exchange, but I’m lazy.  So I’ll just copy and paste. I wrote: All the interest groups are meeting with all the right politicians and making all the right noises, thus the Church of Universal Coverage says the stars have aligned for fundamental reform… Everyone is at the table right now because no one wants to be on the menu.  ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2249686 Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:07:51 +0100 2249686 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1786316&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F389814361%2F The Congressional Budget Office released new figures on the federal budget yesterday, which show that the deficit will peak in 2009 at $438 billion and decline thereafter. But budget watchers and CBO economists know that these “baseline” projections don’t describe actual budget realities. So I constructed a “business as usual” scenario for revenues and spending to get a sense of the fiscal picture that the next president will actually face. The figure illustrates that it will be much easier being the president who enters office in 2009 than the one who enters office in 2013. The revenue line in the figure assumes that all current tax cuts are extended and the alternative minimum tax is indexed for inflation. Extended tax cuts include income tax rates, divi... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1786316 Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:52:43 +0100 1786316 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1783180&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F388751940%2F KPMG has released its annual survey of worldwide corporate tax rates. Here are some of the results: Corporate tax rates continued to fall around the world in 2008. The average corporate tax rate across 106 countries surveyed was 26 percent. By comparison, the U.S. corporate tax rate is 40 percent. The average rate across the 30 OECD industrial nations is down from 38 percent in 1996 to 27 percent today. The average rate across the European Union countries is down from 38 percent in 1996 to just 23 percent today. But rates are falling so quickly that KPMG’s new survey was outdated before the ink was dry. Just this week, South Korea announced that it was speeding up a cut to its federal corporate rate from 25 percent to 20 percent, and Sweden said that it would cut its rate ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1783180 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:54:44 +0100 1783180 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1783181&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F388726632%2F Statist politicians and international bureaucracies such as the OECD and UN routinely attack tax havens, claiming that they lead to “harmful tax competition.” Yet at no point do critics bother to provide any evidence for this claim. This mini-documentary that I narrated for the Center for Freedom and Prosperity looks at the empirical data and scholarly research and reports that tax havens actually have a very positive impact on the global economy. As with my other videos, I very much would like feedback. Indeed, I hope that this video is an improvement over earlier productions (www.youtube.com/afq2007) in large part because of the helpful comments I have received. Needless to say, the video contains a plug at the end for the new book Chris Ewards and I wrote. (Source: Cato-at-... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1783181 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:30:46 +0100 1783181 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1783182&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F388635553%2F The United States has the second-highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. To make matters worse, the U.S. has the world’s worst “worldwide” tax system for companies, meaning that American firms competing in global markets have to pay tax to the nations where they operate - and then report that same income to the IRS for additional taxes. Needless to say, this is a huge ball-and-chain that undermines U.S. competitiveness. Companies try to protect their shareholders and workers by taking all possible steps to minimize and/or delay these onerous additional taxes. Sensible people would look at this mess and immediately decide that the right answer is lower tax rates and a shift to “territorial” taxation. Politicians, however, think that companies should ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1783182 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:34:21 +0100 1783182 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1783183&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F388635554%2F The beneficial impact of tax competition can be seen in this Financial Times report on the UK tax system. The corporate rate has finally been lowered, but other nations are reducing tax rates even faster, so Gordon Brown is being pushed to cut tax rates yet again: This year’s cut in the corporate tax rate has failed to push the UK decisively up the international rankings, according to a new survey that shows Britain’s efforts to improve its tax competitiveness have been blunted by similar efforts elsewhere. The UK now has the 20th lowest corporate tax rate of the 27 European Union member states, a slight improvement for businesses on last year’s 21st position, according to the survey by KPMG, professional services firm. …KPMG said: “This continued downward pre... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1783183 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:33:06 +0100 1783183 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1770826&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F384503888%2F Sen. John McCain reinforced his bipartisan credentials Thursday evening by sounding as confused as the Democrats on the nation’s assumed need for “energy independence.” In his acceptance speech at the GOP convention in St. Paul, McCain pledged federal support for alternative energy so the United States can reduce the amount of energy it imports from abroad. “When I’m president,” McCain told cheering delegates, “we’re going to embark on the most ambitious national project in decades. We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don’t like us very much. We will attack the problem on every front.” He then pledged his support for more offshore drilling, nuclear power plants, wind, tide, solar and natural gas. Whoa! Before we embark on a... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1770826 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:46:34 +0100 1770826 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1770829&cid=t_178588_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F384180392%2F Last May Johan Norberg wrote a devastating critique of Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. (Watch him talk about it here.) In his paper, “The Klein Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Polemics,” he took her book apart: The Shock Doctrine purports to be an exposé of the ruthless nature of free-market capitalism and its chief recent exponent, Milton Friedman. Klein argues that capitalism goes hand in hand with dictatorship and brutality and that dictators and other unscrupulous political figures take advantage of “shocks”—catastrophes real or manufactured—to consolidate their power and implement unpopular market reforms. … Klein’s analysis is hopelessly flawed at virtually every level. Friedman’s own words re... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1770829 Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:02:39 +0100 1770829 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1297934&cid=t_178588_150_f&fid=35777&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FPharmalot%2F%7E3%2F250182803%2F What if the cost of clinical studies was covered by reduced payments for drugs under Medicare Part D and other government programs? And what if the approach could save $120 billion over ten years? Would it be worth considering? That, of course, depends upon how such a gambit is structured. In a paper, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy and Research offers some ideas that, he argues, will ultimately lead to improved public health. To accomplish this goal, private firms would be contracted to run trials, which could be recovered by paying lower prices for drugs purchased through Medicare, which negotiate prices. “Removing the conflict of interest inherent in the current system of clinical trials and bringing drug prices closer to marginal costs would eliminate much of the ine... Pharmalot blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1297934 Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:11:09 +0100 1297934