Travel write Taras Grescoe discussed the impact of traffic congestion in our financial and personal lives in his book Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile: Economists have actually managed to quantify the absurdity of this situation. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, congestion costs the American economy $115 billion every year in […]
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, relying on scores from 11 variables, not the United States, though we are better off than the people born in Russia: If you came into the world today and could pick your nationality, there are at least 15 better choices than to be born American, according to a study […]
While asserting that progressives have traditionally been skeptical of sport, Bhaskar Sunkara argues that liberals should embrace athletic contests: None of these qualms are wrong. They’re just missing something—the ecstasy so many get from watching sports, a joy that can’t be reduced to “false consciousness.” Beyond betraying an ascetic disdain for something a large part of […]
Elizabeth Kolbert, writing in the New Yorker, makes the case for taxes on carbon emissions. Along the way, she explained a fascinating concept of taxation, Pigovian taxes: It’s been almost a century since the British economist Arthur Pigou floated the idea that turned his name into an adjective. In “The Economics of Welfare,” published […]
This chart, from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, shows how much the U.S. spends on military defense compared to other nations.