When did Social Security and Medicare/aid become an entitlement?  Both sides of the aisle have started referring to them as such.  They did it when they stopped treating it as something we have a right to and started treating it as something we think we have a right to. Over the next decade or so [...]

Even with housing prices falling and so much damage to the real estate market, the homebuilders continue to push on. New neighborhoods continue to slowly pop up and shoppers are still considering new homes. With so many delinquent mortgages and empty houses and desperate sellers, why are people still buying new homes? Are builders making [...]

Obama’s most recent proposal calls for the continuation of jobless benefits for many folks that still can’t find jobs. This is not the first time they’ve extended benefits, and every time it’s proposed the same conversation happens. Do the jobless benefits give people an incentive not to find work? The classic example is if I [...]

I remember where I was. If you’ve read “Being Wrong” you might think you don’t exactly remember where you were, but I’ve since confirmed it with the people I was with. I remember where I was. I was a student and had just gotten out of class. My class gets out earlier than my friends’ [...]

A new study shows that knowing the end of a story makes the story itself all that much more enjoyable.  Spoilers allow us to not focus on the plot and really get engrossed in the details. If you’re like me and don’t even want to waste your time and money on things like going to [...]

If you haven’t seen the ads before, the National Association of Realtors has been advertising that every two home purchases creates a job.  At first I thought I could agree with that.  So I started digging to see if there was maybe an article to be written that says Realtors aren’t doing enough to help [...]

The NY Times Economix blog had an interesting post about a potential bright side of unemployment. The blogger cited the chart I’ve posted above from an ongoing study of some long-term unemployed folks. She thinks this might be an indication of some positives that have come out of it. People get some projects done, they [...]

Supply and demand are funny things. They explain gas prices, wars, and even most levels of behavior by crazed parents doing holiday shopping. But they also explain much of the movement of the stock markets. On a day when the stock market goes down, more people are selling than buying, so the abundant supply drives [...]