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Russ Roberts busts several zombie-like myths, not the least of which is that America is ailing because of her wholesale adoption of the ideas of F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman.

Also busting myths – chiefly that ordinary Americans’ living standards have stagnated over the past few decades – is Michael Strain. A slice:

Wages are the most salient form of compensation, but they are far from the only component of income—that is, of the total flow of resources available to households for spending and saving. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) computes a comprehensive measure of inflation-adjusted market income that includes labor market earnings, the value of employer-provided health insurance, and business and capital income. The median household saw market income gains of 21% between 1990 and 2016, the last year for which data are available. The CBO also computes inflation-adjusted income after taxes and government transfers, which grew by 44% for the median household during this period. Households in the bottom 20% saw their post-tax-and-transfer income grow by 66% over these years.

(Note: I believe that Strain is mistaken when he writes that ordinary Americans’ wages did stagnate from the mid-1970s until 1990. For evidence to the contrary of Strain’s claim about this 15-year span, see W. Michael Cox’s & Richard Alm’s 1999 book, Myths of Rich & Poor.)

Ryan Bourne exposes the folly of rent control – specifically here, of Bernie Sanders’s proposal for national rent control.

John Cochrane is rightly grumpy about wokeademia.

James Capretta is understandably dismayed by Trump’s fiscal incontinence.

Zhaofeng Xue is the second student whose economics dissertation I directed at George Mason University. I’m very proud of him.

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