It’s always handy to sound like you know your economics. So, after taking the econlife U.S. Presidential Election Economics Quiz (below), based on the third and final debate, see if you need the follo…
Why We Should Worry About Medicare
With 2028 a Medicare turning point, the 2016 Trustees Report on Medicare focuses on the revenue/spending gap that is creating Medicare’s money problems.…
Where Health Care Costs Less
Depending on where you live and who provides your care, health care spending and the incentives that shape it vary considerably.…
The Importance of Accurately Estimating When We Will Die
Retirement savings and income depend on the person’s prior income, longevity, the macroeconomic environment, Social Security and other entitlement programs.…
A New Way to Calculate Drug Prices
Rather than the market system, several doctor suggest that cancer drugs can be priced using variables based on value that include toxicity and efficacy.…
Part 1: What To Do When More People Are Old
As population shifts, developed nations will have redistribution decisions as the proportion of the non-working aged and the young need more labor income.…
Why Baby Boomers Will Pull Productivity Down
1999 might have been Derek Jeter’s best season. Twenty-five years old, he had 219 hits, 24 home runs and 102 RBIs. His batting average was .349. You can see below that .349 was Derek Jeter’…
Where Do the Slimmest Americans Live?
Because obesity related diseases increase entitlement spending, should government use penalties rather than incentives to slim the US population?…
John Maynard Keynes and the Generational Impact of Entitlements
Before seeing how we are benefiting unequally from entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, let’s start with some history. During 1934, with unemployment high and production low, …
One Reason That $1.1 Trillion is Not So Much
The Congress just agreed on $1.1 trillion in federal spending. But let’s look a bit more closely… Each year, I give my class a federal budget graph and ask them to identify the relative si…