Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Inflation, Deflation, and Redistribution

As Paul Krugman points out in a couple of recent articles, it's worth considering whose interests are served by high interest rates and low inflation, or as Krugman calls it, hard-money ideology.
"Basically, inflation redistributes wealth down the scale of both wealth and age, while deflation does the reverse."
See:

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Hobbled Lobby and the Supremes

One of the things this case highlights is that we shouldn't go along thinking we can expect employers to be the agents of benevolence. They're about profit. They're not philanthropies. Some employers seem politically neutral, which makes them relatively decent. But corporations are about production of goods and services. We shouldn't be mucking about with profit engines when it comes to providing for the public good (e.g., healthcare). That's what government is for.