WhyTheHeck

Next to “plastics” the most famous line in The Graduate might have been where Benjamin announced to his father that he was going to marry Elaine Robinson.  Mr. Braddock firsts proposes congratulating the Robinsons (who Benjamin says haven’t been told), then Elaine (ditto) and finally asks:  “When are you going to pop the question?”   Benjamin [...]

One of our WhytheHeck Facebook friends suggested Luckiest Man, the most recent biography of Lou Gehrig.  I just finished it (in one sitting — couldn’t put it down) and am writing to recommend it.   While much of Gehrig’s career and early life had already been chronicled (curiously, no one has chronicled his speech, of which [...]

Let’s simply tax non-US student tuition at a rate of 400-500% and use the money to fund loan and grant programs for US citizens.

In choosing to invest in a balanced portfolio of stocks most investors are electing to invest their available capital in the wealth potential of our (or the global) economy. In fact, many of us have inadvertently placed up to 40% of our funds into situations that have little to do with wealth creation and more [...]

it sounds a little left field but the best solution to the economy is putting free wifi everywhere across the nation,businesses will invest more in their websites, people can buy products 24/7 , from wherever they are. Delivery companies will have more work, we as people will evolve.

For years Americans spent most of their income largely on the assumption that their increasing home values provided wealth.  The entire economy, from retailers to restaurants, builders to banks, expanded to capture this spending.   Sustaining the increase in home values which generated this apparent wealth required the reduction of interest rates and the relaxation of [...]

Government sanctioned home ownership, while encouraging paying off mortgages.

This Posting sumamrizes the Best of the Ideas from the only website paying $1-million for Yours

One way to significantly impact overall costs is to insist on ‘broker’ fee transparency. The brokers fees can be as high as 15% (they are often less) of the fees paid to the insurance company and are often not identified to the buying employer. Brokers have on occasion caused the buying employer to spend more [...]

Many commentators have lamented the fact that people did not spend their stimulus checks in 2008, but saved them instead. Obviously, the “stimulus” only works if people spend it. Recent examples of those commentators would be Bruce Bartlett (New York Times 12/24/08), Ed Glaeser (Boston Globe 1/5/09), and Scott Lehigh (Boston Globe 1/9/09). No one has suggested the solution proposed below, which would hugely incentivize spending a tax cut or stimulus check, while at the same time providing a windfall to consumers at no additional cost to the government. So to those commentators and everyone else, we offer the following lesson in the new field of “stimulus economics.”