Rogoff on Piketty

Here, via Project Syndicate.  A tidbit:

Would Piketty’s followers be nearly as enthusiastic about his proposed progressive global wealth tax if it were aimed at correcting the huge disparities between the richest countries and the poorest, instead of between those who are well off by global standards and the ultra-wealthy?

An Interview with Mark Gertler

Words of wisdom from the NYU macroeconomist.

Very Sad News

A friend at the University of Chicago reports to me that Gary Becker died last night.  He was 83.

Gary was one of the greatest economists of the past half century. You can read about his contributions here.  I did not know him well, but based on every interaction I had with him, it seems that he was a truly nice man as well as a path-breaking scholar.  He will be missed.

Update: The Times obituary.

Media Slant

Click here to read my column in Sunday's NY Times.

VHA Revisited

Advocates of government-run healthcare often point to the veterans health system as a prototype.  For example, Paul Krugman wrote a while back:

that brings me to Mitt Romney’s latest really bad idea, unveiled on Veterans Day: to partially privatize the Veterans Health Administration (V.H.A.).  What Mr. Romney and everyone else should know is that the V.H.A. is a huge policy success story, which offers important lessons for future health reform.

So this story from CNN (hardly a right-wing news source) caught my eye:

At least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, many of whom were placed on a secret waiting list.  The secret list was part of an elaborate scheme designed by Veterans Affairs managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor, according to a recently retired top VA doctor and several high-level sources. For six months, CNN has been reporting on extended delays in health care appointments suffered by veterans across the country and who died while waiting for appointments and care.

Maybe privatization would solve the problem.  If veterans had vouchers that they could take to competing healthcare providers, they would likely not have had to wait as long.

More Competition

Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz are blogging, mainly on issues related to money and banking. 

The blog seems meant to complement and promote their textbook.  Who would ever think to use a blog for such a purpose?

British Healthcare Fact of the Day

"In Britain, even though they're already paying for the National Health Service, six million Brits—two-thirds of citizens earning more than $78,700—now buy private health insurance. Meanwhile, more than 50,000 travel out of the U.K. annually, spending more than $250 million, to receive treatment more readily than they can at home."

Source.