The driving force behind this site is promoting a culture of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. As I like to say: not everyone should be an entrepreneur because not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, but a lot more people should be entrepreneurs than are currently entrepreneurs, and I'm here to do a little hand-holding along the way. On Tuesday night, I was thrilled … [Read more...] about Regulatory uncertainty, business confidence, and entrepreneurship
Why is it necessary to give the problem a name?
Last week I wrote a brief post explaining why guaranteed government old age pensions, like Social Security in the United States, the State Pension in the United Kingdom, or Old Age Security in Canada, are the only mechanism that has ever been invented for ensuring security and dignity in retirement, and need to be centered in any attempt to reduce elder poverty. This is not … [Read more...] about Why is it necessary to give the problem a name?
The risks of specialized knowledge
The other day, I received an invitation to an event at the Brookings Institution called "The new American dream: Retirement security." This seemed right up my alley, so I clicked through to see the event details. The description starts off with some generic language: "The American dream has drawn millions to the 'land of opportunity' and long encapsulated the idea that every … [Read more...] about The risks of specialized knowledge
What’s the optimal amount of self-employment income?
Because of the antipathy of American politicians to low-income people, who mostly don't vote and mostly don't make large campaign contributions, we've been blessed with a fractured and dysfunctional welfare state, designed to make income support as cumbersome and difficult as possible to receive, even or perhaps especially for those people who are, in fact, entitled to … [Read more...] about What’s the optimal amount of self-employment income?
Something finally happened in the stock market. What did you do?
It's been a boring year in the stock market. If you bought Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF on October 16, 2017, and held it until this last Friday, you would have earned a mere 10% in price appreciation, and a mere 2-4% in dividends (I can't be bothered to look up the exact historical dividend yield at the moment). If you assume 2% inflation (and no, I don't know why people assume … [Read more...] about Something finally happened in the stock market. What did you do?