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12:00 AM"CARE" KILLS:
PODCAST: Anupam Bapu Jena on Random Acts of Medicine (Russ Roberts, Sep 11 2023, EconTalk)
Do marathons kill people who aren't in the race? Does when you're born make you more likely to get the flu? And what's the difference between a good doctor and a bad one? These are some of the questions Anupam Bapu Jena of Harvard University and EconTalk host Russ Roberts take up as they discuss Jena's book, Random Acts of Medicine.
We perform procedures primarily because they're profitable, not because they're evidence-based.
Posted by orrinj at
12:00 AMOPEN THE BORDERS:
The case today is even more compelling because of labor shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, net international migration slowed steadily from a peak of 1.2 million in 2016 as a result of measures President Trump took to reduce both legal and illegal immigration. Trump then took further steps to restrict immigration during the onset of the pandemic, including curbing travel to the U.S. and suspending many foreign worker visas and green cards. The administration also invoked the Title 42 public health law to deny asylum on pandemic-related grounds.
Upon assuming office in January 2021, President Biden overturned many of Trump's immigration policies. As a result, there was a dramatic reversal in the pattern of immigration last year. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that net immigration to the U.S. fully rebounded from its COVID-19 slump, when immigration fell to the lowest levels in decades. The biggest increases were for work visas and humanitarian migrants.
The timing of the immigration upturn proved fortuitous: It helped to alleviate some of the impact of labor shortages while the overall unemployment rate has been hovering near a 50-year low. Foreign-born workers have a higher labor force participation rate than U.S.-born workers, and they have helped to counter some of the inflationary impact of a tight U.S. labor market.
With the headline Consumer Price Index inflation rate falling to about 3 percent recently, wages are now growing faster than inflation. Net immigration will have to stay at relatively high levels to have a lasting impact in containing inflation, but this is far from assured. Consequently, the case for permitting more legal immigration now encompasses both economic growth and inflation reduction considerations.
Posted by orrinj at
12:00 AMHATING GREENS CAN'T STOP THE TRANSITION:
[T]he fall in costs has been spectacular - 95 per cent. According to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency, the LCOE of solar PV fell to a global average of US4.9c/kWh in 2022 - making it 29 per cent cheaper than the lowest cost fossil fuel-fuelled option.
In the case of wind energy, the story is much the same. In 2010, the global weighted-average LCOE of onshore wind was US10.7c/kWh, according to IRENA - or nearly double the cost of the cheapest fossil fuel - and it has since fallen 69 per cent to just US3.3c/kWh, or 52 per cent lower than the cheapest fossil fuel option.
