Tyler Cowen misses the point on Coates' Reparations article

Why is economics called the dismal science? oh, yeah:

There is still a moral case for reparations even if most American whites have lost from slavery rather than benefited.  (Although I doubt if the America public would see the matter that way, which is one reason why the reparations movement probably isn’t going anywhere.)  Nonetheless on the economics of the issue I would suggest a very different analysis than what I am seeing from many of the commentators.  And this analysis makes slavery out to be all the more destructive, and reparations to be all the more unlikely. [from How much have white Americans benefited from slavery and its legacy? | Marginal Revolution

Given Cowen's love of liberty and free markets, I wonder what the economic case is if you take into account the fact that the whites who are supposed not to have benefited were certainly free not to participate and as a 'race' had and has power in markets, whereas the same cannot be said to be true for the African Americans. Also, even if only a single white person benefited from slavery, Jim Crow, contract lending, etc., what does that have to do with the argument? The argument Coates makes is about the economic impacts on African Americans, not about who did or didn't benefit. And Coates' vision of reparations is not a strictly economic one, nor does he say that whites are responsible for making reparations. He says that Americans are. All of us, not just the ones who can be proven to have benefited. Maybe Cowen should read the article.

Latest housing market news for Columbia and Greene Counties

Source: Median home prices up statewide and even higher in lower Hudson Valley - Lohud Real Estate - Politics on the Hudson.

Detailed data from the April report from the New York State Association of Realtors is here. In Columbia County, there were fewer listings in April than the prior year and about the same number of sales. The median sales price rose by about 7% in the previous year to $235k, $20k above the New York State median, and inventory* fell from over twenty-two months to less than sixteen. In Greene County, there were also fewer listings but the number of sales jumped by a third. The median sale price was only slightly higher than the previous year, and at $165k, well below the Columbia County and New York State levels. Nevertheless, inventory also dropped significantly in Greene County from nearly twenty-eight moths to under twenty-one. Overall, then a continued improvement in our area, with prices continuing to lag in Greene County.



* measured by dividing the number of homes for sale by the current sales per month.

Show #023 “Wages, Fracking, Casinos and Power Lines. Also, Turkey”

Show available for streaming or download here.

Show #023 Show Notes

Show #023 “Wages, Fracking, Casinos and Power Lines. Also, Turkey” Show Notes

Description

Welcome to Your Friendly Neighborhood Economist Show #023 “Wages, Fracking, Casinos and Power Lines. Also, Turkey” originally aired on Tuesday May 13, 2014. In this show I discuss the minimum wage (again) in light of the recent failure of a minimum wage to get through the Senate, and bring you the first part of my interview with my old friend Yahya Madra of Bogaziçi University in Istanbul on the recent developments in the Turkish economy and their intersection with the Gezi park uprising.

How to learn about the society you live in

As I was thinking about recommendations for #RecommendARadicalBook, I got to thinking that most of the things I've learned about how the world we live in actually works have been from people of color. The two books I thought of to recommend were Vine Deloria Jr.'s Custer Died for Your Sins and Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, two good examples. Of course I've learned lots more from the people of color I've known in my life than I have from reading, especially about the everyday experience of living in our society. Anyway the though that all of this put in my head was this: if you want to learn about how our society works, you need to talk to people that it's not working for.

Upgrading the blogging aspect of the show...

I decided to start this blog because there are a number of things that weren't quite working by just using twitter, tumblr and facebook. First and foremost, the show notes were hard to format nicely on tumblr. It's fine for plain text, but for something a little more structured, a platform like this is better. Also, on the occasion when I want to ramble on about more than one item, the same logic applies. So, I want to try out using blogger for now, and seeing how it works out for me. I definitely picture myself using this platform as a way to produce rough drafts for segments for the show, especially my upcoming comments on Piketty's book. So, I hope you enjoy having even more of my thoughts streamed in to your brains.

Show #022 Is our Schools Funded?

Online now at this link.

Show Notes for Show #022 "Is our schools funded?"

Show Notes

These are the long-delayed show notes for the show that aired on April 8 of 2014. And this is my shiny new blog. Like it? I'll explain in a bit why I started this, but first, the notes you've been dying to see.