Bardonomics

Image: YP/Reuters A version of this article also appeared in the South China Morning Post's Young Post on Thursday, April 28.  http://yp.scmp.com/news/features/article/103333/hong-kong-wealthy-city-yet-more-million-are-living-poverty Asia’s financial capital has a poverty problem. There is no doubting that. According to Hong Kong government figures, between 15% and 20% of the population lives below the poverty line, defined as half the city’s median annual income of about HKD 180,000. In Hong Kong, sky-high rents and limited space mean that poverty poses particularly acute difficulties. With insufficient public housing, many of the impoverished live in dangerous, and often illegal, subdivided flats. Others still are forced to live in cage homes.  Hong Kong’s social welfare program, the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA), is notoriously ungenerous. Payments are as low as HKD 2,000 per month for a single, healthy adult. That’s a mere one-seventh of the ...

Image: AFP/YP A version of this article also appeared in the South China Morning Post's Young Post on Thursday, April 21.  http://yp.scmp.com/news/features/article/103282/how-hugo-chavezs-chavismo-ran-venezuela%E2%80%99s-economy-ground The precipitous fall in global oil prices wreaked havoc on many oil producing countries. The crash put immense fiscal strain on the Gulf states and countries like Russia, which rely heavily on oil exports as a source of foreign currency. Yet, arguably no economy has been hurt quite as badly as Venezuela’s.  Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves; the commodity comprises 95% of the country’s export revenue and 50% of GDP. But whereas Middle Eastern nations with sizable oil reserves converted the valued resource into riches, Venezuela never saw such prosperity.  Years of economic mismanagement meant that the country’s economy was teetering at the best of times. Inflation ran into the double digits even wh...

Image: AP/YP A version of this article also appeared in the South China Morning Post's Young Post on Thursday, April 14.  http://yp.scmp.com/news/features/article/103221/sorry-break-it-you-bernie-sanders-man-flawed-plan Bernie Sanders, the septuagenarian presidential candidate, has captivated millions of mainly young, middle and working class Americans with his vision for economic equality. It is indisputable that economic inequality in America has risen dramatically over the past few decades. Today, the top 1% of American households control over 40% of the country’s wealth, a doubling of their share since the mid-1970s. Such a gaping disparity between the wealthy and the middle and working classes is not conducive to social stability. It also harms economic growth: the wealthy save much more, as a proportion of their income, than do the poor. Less money is put back into the economy by a millionaire than by a working class individual.   That being said, Sanders’ ...

A version of this article also appeared in the South China Morning Post's Young Post on Thursday, April 7.  https://yp.scmp.com/news/features/article/103157/why-are-university-textbooks-so-expensive If you want to learn economics, start with a textbook. It doesn’t even need to be an economics textbook. You can complete your first economics lesson without so much as opening the front cover, and here’s why. Textbooks are expensive. A quick scroll through the introductory economics books on Amazon shows that most cost between HK$1,938 and HK$2,326. Hong Kong’s Consumer Council has found that, on average, textbook costs amount to more than HK$2,200 annually just for primary school students. At many US universities, students can find themselves coughing up more than US$1,000 a year for required books. While digital books and websites have hit the traditional publishing industry, textbook prices have increased sharply over the years. University textbook costs have risen ...