Category «Prospective»

A post attempting to predict the second order effects of proposed policy or law in the future.

Updated: Side Effects of Disbanding the Electoral College

Panting of the signing of the constitution.

Whenever a Presidential election is won in the Electoral College and the winner doesn’t have the majority of the popular vote there are calls to disband the Electoral College. This has happened five times: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 in US history. While on the face, using the popular vote sounds like the way things should be and many wonder why we have the Electoral College. This Article discusses the reasons for the Electoral College and potential Second Order Effects of moving to a popular vote for the US President.

How will Privatizing the Air Traffic Control System improve Air Safety? Or will it?

The President has proposed and congress is moving forward with a plan to privatize the US Air Traffic Control (ATC) System. This article looks at the potential safety implications with this proposal. The principal charge by General Aviation Organizations, they represent the people that own those small private planes, is that the proposal will turn the US ATC over to the Airlines.

Second Order Effects of $15 an hour minimum wage

There have been many calls recently, mostly by labor unions, to set the Federal Minimum Wage at $15 an hour. This is double the current Federal Minimum Wage of $7.25. The principal augment is that you can’t support a family on the current Federal Minimum Wage and therefore can’t get off public assistance. This article discusses the potential ramifications of doubling the minimum wage and the impact. We discuss what would be reasonable, given the amount of time that has passed since the last raise. Also, ways that one could get employers to increase wages without a change in the minimum wage.

Second Order Effects of Philly Soda Tax

Premise of Article: The City Counsel of Philadelphia just doesn’t seem understand second order effects or think that people are smart enough to do math. This article is designed to show that economic and tax policy second order effects are easy to predict and avoid if one simply applies basic economic principles. Facts: On January …

Can Assange and Putin both be telling the truth?

Premise of Article: The recent charges that the Russian government attempted to influence the U.S. elections this year have consumed the US mainstream media and the Russian government has denied it. In addition, Julian Assange has deigned receiving the information that he released was from the Russans. The premise of this article is could they …

The Side Effects of Preventing Government Employees from working for government contractors

President-Elect Trump has proposed restricting government employees that are involved in government contracting from ever taking jobs with government contractors. At this point, there aren’t any details about what President-Elect Trump is proposing. For the sake of this article, we will assume the most restrictive policy that we can imagine and then propose policies that would actually work. (Since this article was written, the President has clarified his position. The ban only applies to the political appointees and his immediate staff.)