David Friedman remembers his father. A slice:
Economists are supposed to think about the effect of incentives. The existence of the Federal Reserve, established to serve as a lender of last resort, meant that private banks believed it was no longer necessary for them to take expensive precautions against a run on the banks bringing down the banking system. When the run came the Fed did nothing about it and the system crashed. [Paul] Krugman’s implication that if there was no Fed to prevent it the Great Depression would still have happened is like claiming that if Lucy had not promised Charlie Brown that she would hold the football for him he still would have tried to kick it and gone head over heels.
All the opinions in CFSA v. CFPB, including Alito’s dissent, miss this fundamental point. The primary problem with the CFPB’s structure is not that it represents Congress ceding its authority over the purse to an unaccountable agency (now, even more surreal, an executive agency that draws its funding from an independent agency, i.e., the Federal Reserve, with no formal appropriation from Congress). The problem is that Congress in 2010 ceded the authority of future Congresses over the CFPB’s budget.
John Phelan helps to bust the ridiculous myth of the so-called “pink tax.”
“The secret ballot meant victory for Mercedes-Benz workers.” A slice:
The secret ballot is a game-changer. Last week it protected thousands of Alabama auto workers from being forced into union representation against their wishes.
Workers at two Mercedes-Benz factories voted in an election ending May 17 against joining the United Auto Workers, one of the nation’s largest unions. Nearly 4,700 of about 5,100 eligible employees cast ballots, rejecting the union by a margin of 56% to 44%. The outcome surprised many observers because in early April, about 70% of the factory workers petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for an election. That made it seem like unionization was all but guaranteed.
But it wasn’t, for a simple reason. The UAW obtained the 70% by asking workers to sign cards indicating their support for unionization—the same cards used for a process called “card check.” The card-check method for union organizing is infamous for encouraging the intimidation and harassment of workers hesitant to join a union by other workers who are pro-union. When your co-workers can see your stance on unionization, you have an incentive to go along with the loudest voices, which typically belong to activists. Union organizers have even been known to visit workers’ homes to urge them to unionize. The use of cards also allows unions to present workers with a one-sided story, which undercuts workers’ ability to make informed decisions.
Judge Glock argues that “‘Neopopulism’ is overhyped.” (And read also GMU Econ alum Dominic Pino.)
But has election politics ever seen spending on such a massive scale for the sole purpose of producing votes? Let’s depart from the cuddlier labels for this phenomenon and call it what it is: Biden’s bribes. Mr. Biden is using the U.S. Treasury the way a 1920s party boss would use the safe behind his desk.
Most polls have indicated for months that the 81-year-old president’s support among younger voters is soft. Worse, their turnout is relatively poor in most elections.
Voilà, the Biden student-loan debt-forgiveness plan. Questions of moral hazard aside, one may argue that with more than 40 million Americans owing about $1.7 trillion in federal and private student loans, some measure of forgiveness could be defended by a Democratic president.
But the Biden proposal tripped the what-the-heck-is-going-on alarm. It totaled $430 billion in write-offs for about 30 million borrowers. No surprise, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Biden overstepped his presidential spending authority. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the administration’s description of the plan as a “modification” was true “only in the same sense that the French Revolution ‘modified’ the status of the French nobility.”
D.G. Hart reflects on Jerry Seinfeld’s reflections on work and love.
Inspired by Mother’s Day, GMU Econ alum Liya Palagashvili offered some sound advice.
