“As beings possessing reason, men “are all equal, and equals can have no right over each other,” wrote seventeenth-century English politician Algernon Sidney.26 Viewed from an Enlightenment perspective, individuals were not subjects who had a duty to bow to political… — Don Watkins Copy Share Image
“hat are the effects of increasing minimum wages?” asks Paul Krugman. “Any Econ 101 student can tell you the answer: The higher wage reduces… — Don Watkins Copy Share Image
“All of these agencies were enormously active during the so-called laissez-faire era. As the former CEO of BB&T Bank John Allison notes, “Government spending alone . . . on financial regulations (not company bailouts) increased, in adjusted dollars, from $725 million in 1980 to $2.07 billion in 2007.”41 Meanwhile, between 1980 and 2009, for every one instance of financial deregulation,… — Don Watkins Copy Share
“There is an inequality problem involved in cronyism, however: cronyism is an example of political inequality. It allows a privileged group of people to… — Don Watkins Copy Share Image
“The true source of economic security is self-reliance and economic freedom—Social Security is immoral because it subverts both. It sabotages the virtues that enable… — Don Watkins Copy Share Image
“One result of the federal government’s student financial aid programs is higher tuition costs at our nation’s colleges and universities.” Although paradoxical, this result could have been predicted from basic economic theory: when students can come up with more money for college, thanks to the government’s efforts, colleges can afford to increase their tuition. “The empirical evidence is consistent with… — Don Watkins Copy Share
“A college student who wouldn’t have taken a McDonald’s job for $7.25 an hour may find it worthwhile at $10 an hour, leaving fewer… — Don Watkins Copy Share Image
“That’s what happened at Ford, for example. In 1914, Henry Ford famously raised his starting wage to $5 a day (nearly $120 in today’s dollars). He had to: turnover at Ford in 1913 had been 370 percent.37 In order to find and keep the workers who were assembling his increasingly profitable cars, Ford had to be willing to outbid his… — Don Watkins Copy Share
“Some economic inequality critics go further and contend that there comes a point at which inequality undermines progress—and, by and large, they believe the United States has reached that point today. What do they base that conclusion on? There is no theoretical reason why differences in income or wealth should slow human progress. The notion that “spending drives the economy”… — Don Watkins Copy Share
“Today, more and more of the world is following our lead, with the result that billions around the globe have been liberated from poverty in recent decades: since 1981, the fraction of the earth’s population living on less than a dollar a day has dropped from over 40 percent to only 14 percent.23 This is an incredible achievement. Yet most… — Don Watkins Copy Share
“Wealth is not distributed by society: it is produced and traded by the people who create it. To distribute it, society would first have… — Don Watkins Copy Share Image
“When inequality alarmists like Krugman hold up the post-war era as a model, they are not doing so in the name of prosperity, or… — Don Watkins Copy Share Image
“We’re taught to think of the minimum wage as a mechanism for helping people earn more. What it actually does is prevent people from… — Don Watkins Copy Share Image
