| Get the latest policy analysis by Mercatus scholars. |
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Failed Selective Consumption
Taxes Are Red Meat for Politicians |
| Adam Hoffer and William F. Shughart II | The Hill |
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| Across the country, state and local governments have levied selective sales or excise taxes on consumer products such as cigarettes, sugary soft drinks, chewing gum, milkshakes, playing cards, hotel rooms, fur clothing, plastic bags, and countless other goods. Often, the justification for these taxes sounds benevolent, stating the purpose is to make us healthier or the environment cleaner. These policies often fail to reach the stated goal and can have enormous unintended consequences. |
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| Ted Gioia on the Power of Music |
| Ted Gioia and Tyler Cowen | Conversations with Tyler |
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| To Ted Gioia, music is a form of cloud storage for preserving human culture. And the real cultural conflict, he insists, is not between “high brow” and “low brow” music, but between the innovative and the formulaic. Imitation and repetition deaden musical culture — and he should know, since he listens to 3 hours of new music per day and over 1,000 newly released recordings in a year. His latest book covers the evolution of music from its origins in hunter-gatherer societies, to ancient Greece, to jazz, to its role in modern political protests. He joins Tyler to discuss the history and industry of music, the strange relationship between outbreaks of disease and innovation, how the shift from record
companies to Silicon Valley transformed incentive structures within the industry, the vocal polyphony of Pygmy music, Bob Dylan’s Nobel prize, his advice to aspiring music writers, and why he loves Side B of Abbey Road. |
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Warren’s Health Care Plan Will Cost
More Than She Says |
| Tyler Cowen | Bloomberg Opinion |
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| Elizabeth Warren has proposed a 10-year, $52 trillion health care plan that she claims is possible to fund without increasing taxes on the middle class. But she is approaching the question the wrong way, as what matters is not whether the money can be raised for a proposed policy, but the opportunity cost of policy choices. The impact of these funding methods would deprive consumers of healthcare goods and services, decrease the number of new pharmaceuticals developed, decrease wages and job creation, and more. |
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