There’s Another Candidate?

In light of the debate last night between America’s two dominant parties, I wanted to talk about the man who didn’t get to make it to the stage. Yes that’s right, there is still someone out there fighting. The man is Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate. The two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, a state that usually votes democratic, claims that most Americans are in fact libertarians but just don’t know it yet. In his interview with Stephen Dubner, Johnson tells listeners his biggest problem, “Right now, 65 percent of Americans don’t even know that I exist”. But Continue reading There’s Another Candidate?

Abolish the minimum wage? A debate.

Quick share on Monday am, on our semester theme of the minimum wage: Here’s a link to a public debate on the minimum wage hosted a couple of years ago by NPR’s Intelligence^2 Debates. The audio recording of the 50-minute Oxford-style debate addresses the motion “Abolish the minimum wage.” and a winner is determined by polling audience members before and after the debate. James Dorn (Cato Institute) and Russ Roberts (Hoover Institution at Stanford University) argue in favor of the motion, while Jared Bernstein (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) and Karen Kornbluh (former U.S. ambassador to the OECD) side Continue reading Abolish the minimum wage? A debate.

Should Tacoma increase its minimum wage to $15/hour? A live debate!

On October 8th at 7pm, colleagues at Pacific Lutheran University will hold their latest installment of the Ruth Anderson Public Debate, where two teams (one expert and one student debater each) will engage in a debate on the subject of increasing the minimum wage in Tacoma to $15 an hour. Sound Economics will be there covering the debate live, and we encourage those economically-minded readers to attend if you can! If you cannot attend, follow the debate on Twitter; a small handful of questions for the debaters will be selected from Twitter submissions. In the weeks leading up to the debate, Continue reading Should Tacoma increase its minimum wage to $15/hour? A live debate!