Should We Tax the Rich?
The central tenet of Obama’s economic platform is to raise marginal rates on the wealthiest 2% of Americans. There are many reasons why this may or may not be a good idea, or a “fair” one…. but let’s just assume that it is, and it was implemented. Below is a thought experiment that examines whether […]
How I Know Benjamin Harrison From A Fellow Miami Alum.
How I Know Benjamin Harrison From A Fellow Miami Alum. It was a fall morning in Oxford, and as I strode along the Slant Walk the Beta Bells rang out nine times in the chilly November air, indicating I was going to be a few minutes late to my morning class. Just a few short years […]
Keepers of the Bridge
Ivanka was pleasant enough. She smiled a lot and made sure to explain the aging relics of the Ottoman Empire as the van rolled northwards into Bosnia and Herzegovina. The ride was long, and I could not help as the van sat peacefully at the border crossing to think of the 600,000 Bosnians who for […]
Sweet Disposition
Bias. What a bitter word. I can remember I was introduced to it my by 9th grade biology teacher in the context of learning about how science should be taught in schools. We had a whole lesson plan, going through weeks of learning about how what we are taught in the classroom and read on […]
On mammals and dairy
Journalists and bloggers love to be the first to break a story. They love to have history validate their predictions, and be able to have the satisfaction of citing a story they wrote months ago so that they can sit back in their spinney computer chair, and with a grin, type: “I’ve been saying this […]
Taking the Long Way to Church, Metaphorically Speaking
Sometimes life provides metaphors that are just too perfect not to acknowledge – last Sunday I was provided with such an experience which will help me relate a topic which has weighed heavy on me, and fortuitously happens to be fitting with the general theme of the blog. The day began just as it usually does: I woke […]
An Inconvenient Truth About the Economic Environment – Part II
This post is largely in response to a claim made by a reader, Michael. He is a soon to be fellow Miami University alumnus, who pointed out his perception that politicians (particularly speaker John Boehner) tend to oversimplify their assesments of the economy (See response to Feb 17th post). Michael is a bright guy, has the benefit of the education […]
A Season of Revolution
Thomas Jefferson once said that every generation needs a new revolution. That’s sometimes a difficult statement to unpack for a thriving democracy such as our own, as I’m sure TJ wouldn’t have advocated our middle class picking up their pichforks and storming their capital every 35 years (and they’re coming dangerously close to that in […]
A look at the New Deal and new deals
I spent the summer of 2010 attempting to run the final stretch of achieving my masters degree: writing my exit paper. This paper could be of any topic of my choosing, as long as I had a faculty member at Miami that was willing to advise along the way. I knew from the get go […]
What you can’t talk about at the dinner table
My current state of affairs lends itself to a lot of… introspective time. I have time to think a lot, read a lot, write a lot (hence this blog), and also play a lot of Tropico, the only computer game I brought to Denver. Call me a dweeb, but being the dictator of a small […]
