Classical Values
That is an outrageous injustice that cries out for redress. There are only two possible remedies. This column favors the fiscally responsible solution: abolishing the Women’s Bureau. The alternative would at least double our supply of comic material, but everyone has to make sacrifices.
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Other than Krugman, I know of no reasons why the profession went from viewing the liquidity trap as a crackpot theory in the 1970s and 1980s, to being the dominant theory today. And I’ve probably been blogging, speaking, writing, debating monetary economics as aggressively as anyone else alive over the past 5 years. if there was a coherent explanation, I think I would have heard it by now.
There’s unlikely to be one reason that cities vary. But as I pointed out on the show, social capital is clearly one of the factors. Salt Lake City is in the reddest of red state places — not a lot of taxes and transfers going on there. And yet it’s highly mobile, presumably because of the influence of the Mormon Church, which essentially runs the most comprehensive and effective social welfare system in the country…maybe in the world. There’s money and other help to tide you over in bad times, but arguably more importantly, there’s all the efforts of your ward to get you back on your feet. Churches do this sort of thing everywhere, of course, but in few places is it so comprehensive and organized. And unlike the government system, it’s combined with intense social support, and a community whose norms about things like work, marriage and family (and drinking and drug abuse) encourage what you might call a prosperous lifestyle.
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