Economy
Armand Domalewski asks an important question, when he observes a quick decrease in teen and young adult suicide after 1994, which held until about 2008 and in 2017 exceeded its previous high: The more important question, though, is what has been happening since 2007/2008. Having graduated high school in 1993, I’d speculate that the drop…
Among my frustrations with social media in recent years has been the way my streams become filled with content in which I have minimal interest — like Democrat propaganda — because people share it in disbelief. The frustration is primarily with the realization that people apparently believe in completely incompatible realities, which is what motivates…
Economically illiterate activists are laying the groundwork to make housing harder to find, and make life worse, in Rhode Island: This is how economics works. The rent goes up to reflect the real value of the property. Other property owners see the value of their space and reconsider their usage. For example, instead of renovating…
John DePetro and Justin Katz lament the lack of focus on the basics in RI government and media.
Politicians have forced people in the Northeast to invest heavily in wind energy by means of our electric bills and taxes, and more problems are appearing: The linked article is worth reading: Equinor, along with its joint venture partner BP, has agreed with NYSERDA to cancel the contract for the project, citing rising costs due…
Honestly, I expected the COVID experience to put an end to the high-school-civics-project of banning single-use plastic bags, but stores’ bag dispensers now sit empty, and Rhode Islanders have another reason to lean toward shopping in Massachusetts or online. In Rhode Island, our legislators have a chronic difficulty understanding consequences and the availability of alternatives. …
So much of Rhode Island’s predicament can be explained by incentives. People who rely on government for their prosperity, for instance, have a great deal of incentive to manipulate the processes thereof, whereas our community lacks institutions with incentive to counterbalance them politically. Something similar and related — though much broader on a social scale…
John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss various fantasies of the ruling class in RI and the U.S.
You don’t have to be an old hand at data analysis to see what’s going on in this chart of Americans holding multiple jobs, from the St. Louis Federal Reserve: From 1994 through 2020, the number oscillated around approximately 250,000 to 300,000. Now we’re rapidly approaching 500,000. One conclusion about which I’d speculate, given…
Don’t let things like this slip under your awareness or your commentary, because plenty of Rhode Islanders have no experience or intellectual foundation to question the reporting: The R.I. Department of Health on Thursday ordered the owner of Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital to take immediate steps to stabilize their…