Economics

Columnists Emmett Rensin of Vox and Kevin Drum of Mother Jones have a disagreement. Rensin thinks liberals are too smug, while Drum thinks they are too condescending.

They're both trying to explain the paradox of why white working-class voters favor Republicans. Rensin notes:

Which factor has a greater impact on your child's test scores: The amount of time you spend reading with your child, or the number of books you have in your house? Got your answer? Try this one: The number of hours the kid spends watching television, or the number of hours the parents spend at PTA meetings?

In this series we've been looking at libertarian economics professor Walter Williams' defense of free market capitalism as outlined in his video for Prager Univeristy.

Williams defines the free market as a series of voluntary actions.

The free market calls for voluntary actions between individuals. There's no coersion. In a free market, if I want something from you, I have to do something for you.

In part 1 of this series we looked at the benefits of capitalism as discussed in a Prager University video narrated by libertarian economist Walter Williams. Williams defines free-market capitalism simply as voluntary transactions between individuals. Ideally, market freedoms lead to individual freedoms. In an ideal world, capitalism is the most moral economic system ever invented.

The last time we encountered Prager "University", we were looking at an overly simplified video extolling the benefits of a flat tax. Today we're going to look at Prager's overly simplified video extolling the moral virtues of capitalism.

Bernie Sanders appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, sharply criticizing Donald Trump while attempting to appeal to Trump's supporters.

Look, many of Trump's supporters are working-class people. And they are angry. And they're angry because they are working longer hours for lower wages. They're angry because their jobs have left this country and gone to China or other low-wage countries.…

A new study (pdf) released by Princeton University researchers Anne Case and Angus Deaton shows a steady long-term increase in the mortality rate of non-Hispanic white Americans aged 45-54. This runs counter to the trend we see among other industrialized nations and even among U.S. Hispanics.

Prager "University" is a website created in 2012 by radio talk show host and columnist Dennis Prager. The website offers a series of five-minute videos on a wide range of social, political, and economic topics, and is intended to provide an alternative to a "liberal bias" which Prager believes is common in university settings.

A typical video is the following attack on the progressive income tax.

Washington Post columnists George Will and E. J. Dionne both wrote about inequality last week. Not surprisingly, they had very different takes on the subject.

Dionne has taken note of how Congressional Republicans are increasingly turning to rhetoric usually associated with Democrats.

Supply-side economists like to make a direct link between tax rates and economic growth. Forbes magazine's Ben Wilterdink, in a 2013 article, explains, "Rather than driving up rates on a small number of overburdened taxpayers, these states create an environment where people and businesses can flourish.