In the wake of the collapse of the World Trade Organisation’s Doha round of trade liberalisation talks in Cancun there is one unilateral step President Bush should take. That would be to announce that the United States is phasing out subsidies for agricultural production and export, says Clyde Prestowitz,
Thomas Jefferson, representing rural, small-government and small-business interests, argued that sustaining a national debt would centralise economic influence in a small number of privileged hands. It could also lead to the kind of class inequality that had galvanised so many American immigrants to flee their native countries.
Legally and ethically, Jefferson
Education, says William Raspberry, has to be actively sought and received. That may account for the academic achievement gap between blacks and whites in America.
Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom (“No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning”) note that by twelfth grade, on average, black students are four years behind those
In his recent report on European pharmaceuticals, Oliver Schoffski, at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, looks at the treatment of 20 illnesses across Europe and incorporates nearly 200 studies of how people were treated. He paints a picture of non-treatment and under-treatment for common diseases such as schizophrenia, heart disease
According to media reports the newly established Medicines Pricing Committee intends to recommend a single exit price for pharmaceuticals, which is to be set as each drug leaves the factory. It also intends setting the permitted mark-ups for wholesalers, distributors and pharmacists.
While price controls are intended to make medicines more
Like other forms of health coverage, personal health accounts are typically funded by employers. Employers make deposits into for employees, but they also purchase a low-cost, catastrophic (major medical) health insurance with a high deductible for the employee.
Options such as medical savings accounts (MSAs) and health reimbursement
The most important item on the electricity policy agenda is a little-known proposal by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to impose a nationwide Standard Market Design (SMD) on the electric power industry. If adopted, warns economist Thomas M. Lenard, SMD will make the American electricity system more
Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods; conversely, deflation is caused by a shortage of money in relation to available goods. Controlling the basic money supply in America is the U.S. Federal Reserve, whose stinginess three years ago in part through an overly high
