Since we now have a preliminary Congressional Budget Office report on the effects of the American Health Care Act, the Republican replacement for the Affordable Care Act, this seems like as good an occasion as any to address the importance of medical insurance to the construction of an economy of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Since World War II, … [Read more...] about We must decide: shall people be financially ruined by medical costs?
Archives for March 2017
Over There: Investing in Germany
Today I'm introducing a new feature I'm very excited about. It's extremely common in financial journalism and even in popular culture to see vague references to "how things work" in some other country, whether it's refugee policies in Denmark, the health insurance marketplace in Singapore, or employment law in France. Since, as readers know by now, I … [Read more...] about Over There: Investing in Germany
What do you think you are doing when you diversify investments?
Over the last year or so, I've read 20-30 books on investing, including short handbooks like The Index Card and somewhat more technical volumes like Jack Bogle's Common Sense on Mutual Funds. The thing virtually every book I've read on investing has in common is a recommendation that part of a portfolio be invested in bonds, and it took me a … [Read more...] about What do you think you are doing when you diversify investments?
Why do we tax corporate profits?
There is a periodically-fashionable argument in the United States that a key obstacle to economic growth is the "double-taxation" of corporate earnings: once at the corporate level, and a second time when profits are distributed to shareholders and (eventually) reported on their individual income tax returns. This argument is typically made by people who, for ideological or … [Read more...] about Why do we tax corporate profits?
The many flavors of investing activity
I've heard a lot of talk lately about the issue of investors and investment advisors who claim to be investing "passively" but are really just actively managing low-cost index funds. One reason this issue is interesting is that most research into the superiority of index investing seems to ignore it completely. For example, when Jack Bogle says the … [Read more...] about The many flavors of investing activity