WhyTheHeck

The idea to market Lou Gehrig jerseys to raise proceeds and awareness for ALS was first made public in the economic policy humor book Why the Heck Aren’t We Already Doing This Stuff?  12 Economic Policy Ideas Even a Congressman Could Understand. The Gehrig jersey was the idea that got people’s attention though there are [...]

Housing sales can be boosted siginificantly — at no taxpayer cost — bythe federal government taking one simple step to reform the way houses are bought, sold, and financed.

President Obama’s State of the Union speech proposed ways to help the middle class recover and also to create some jobs.   Naturally — and despite a proposed spending freeze – these initiatives will cost money.   He overlooked four initiatives that can also help the middle class, and  create jobs either directly or indirectly, but without costing anybody anything.
First, why [...]

I hate to be one of those I-told-you-so guys (not!) but way back in April I predicted a second round of stimulus, in 2010. I pointed that that the housing bubble was like heroin, and the first stimulus was like Methadone to prevent the economy from going “cold turkey” after the housing bubble burst.  (That [...]

For the higher ups in charge of the fiasco they call a recovery plan!

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.”