Yo-Yo Economics?

|Peter Boettke| Carol Graham has a recent opinion article "America's Broken Dream" which hones in on the status of economic opportunity in the US economy.  She argues that:

Authored by Walter Block, originally posted at Austrian Economics and Liberty blog, The Creation of Jobs If the media tell us that “the opening of XYZ mill has created 1,000 new jobs,” we give a cheer. When the ABC company closes and 500 jobs are lost, we’re sad. The politician who can provide a subsidy to save ABC is almost assured of widespread public support for his work in preserving jobs.

The study by business property experts LondonOffices.com, asked 420 workers to cite the time they felt they were at their least productive. The average time was then taken. Workers claimed around this time they suffered from a post lunch lull but said a strong coffee or bar of chocolate often got them on the move again. Some confessed to using this time to check their social media profiles whilst other said it was when they started planning their evening’s activities.

|Peter Boettke|

Elizabeth Anderson: Tom Paine and Social Insurance Elizabeth Anderson on Gracchus Babeuf:

It’s a sign of the times that a reputable economist, Dean Baker, can use the word “corruption” in the headline of an article describing two major trade deals under negotiation and no one bats an eye.

"We have been taught that meritocratic institutions and societies are fair" said Ben Bernanke recently. It's a view that seems widely held. In his effort to defend (pdf) the 1% Greg Mankiw suggests that a big reason for increased inequality is that:

Steve Waldman submits: Both globally and within most nations, the patterns of consumption required to sustain existing social arrangements are inconsistent with the distribution of the fruits of production. Social and economic stability, therefore, depend upon redistribution for which there is no overt legal framework or political consensus. To square this circle, the financial and government sectors have evolved means of hiding redistribution in complex, continually improvised arrangements.