Sound Economics

Chapter 1: Division of Labor               In chapter one, it is very apparent that Smith is pro-capital, and anti-agriculture, which heavily contributes to his ideas surrounding what a rich country should look like. He argued that “the greatest improvement in the productive powers of labor, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labor.”[1] For Smith the “improvement in the productive powers of labor” could only be achieved through manufacturing. This argument was mainly formed by Smiths disagreement with Continue reading Insight to the Wealth of Nations: Chapters One through Three→

Skimming through the literature on contemporary healthcare, whether domestic or global, the rhetoric that the authors use reveals quite a bit about their intentions and beliefs on healthcare. For example, a 2003 discussion paper published by the WHO stated one of the main priorities when designing a healthcare system is to, “consider fairness in financial contribution” implying that healthcare is a normal good. On the opposing side, physician-anthropologist Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee of Harvard University stated that when we solely consider market ideals in healthcare, “non-market values worth caring about are crowded out.” These two views are telling of our own Continue reading What drives healthcare policy: Economics or Cultural values→

About two years ago I reported on Venezuela’s messy monetary system, which I intended to update with the new news surrounding the creation of a cryptocurrency they call the Petro. However, I am beginning with a refresher about what Venezuela’s monetary system has looked like since 2014.  Venezuela began to face detrimentally high inflation in 2014, right after the death of previous President Hugo Chavez. Although this was not the beginning of the country’s monetary problems, high inflation has led to a huge decrease in the value of the Bolivar, Venezuela’s currency. Now prices of regular goods and services have skyrocketed. Not only Continue reading Venezuelas Monetary Disaster Continued→

Ann Mari May and Mary MGarvey of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and David Kucera of the International Labour Organization surveyed economists from 18 European countries in search of economist’s opinions on certain matters. What they found was not only fascinating but also not incredibly surprising. The set up the poll by asking five different questions with ratings ranging from one to five. One stood for strongly disagreeing and five standing for strong agreeing. They then divided up the answers by sex. The results of the poll are shown in the image below: As we can see, four out of the Continue reading Different Economic Opinions by Sex→

Recall last weeks post about Multisided platforms through the example of Classpass. We very lightly touched on their business model which was formed by a money side and a subsidy side, where consumers were the money side and gym/studios were the subsidy side. This week we will dive deeper into the complications of building, igniting and designing a multisided platform. Classpass’s business model is just one common way to configure a money and subsidy sides of a platform. While this model may work for them, it would not work for a company such as Spotify. Spotify connects music artists with Continue reading Multisided Platforms continued→

One hundred years ago, the Spanish Flu pandemic brought devastation to the world, killing an estimated 50-100 million worldwide. Though not nearly as severe, this current flu season is proving to be one of the deadliest in recent history, even when compared to the H1N1 pandemic of 2009. Current predictions indicate that the virus is not about to slow down. Indeed, last week’s prevalence was calculated at 51 per 100,000 people while this week saw 60 per 100,000 people. This number is so great that influenza is currently the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. Of equal concern Continue reading Influenza: Not just a medical issue→