Argentina: One More Step toward Venezuela
Juan Carlos Hidalgo
This week the Argentine Congress is likely to pass legislation that would bring that country one step closer to suffering the economic disaster that currently besets Venezuela.
First, let’s keep in mind that when it comes to the economy, Argentina is already the country that comes closest to following Venezuela’s flawed policies (expansionary monetary policy, arbitrary expropriations and nationalizations, price controls, etc.).
High inflation remains the country’s number one problem. According to private consulting firms, year-to-year inflation in August was 40.4%. The black market exchange rate ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 16, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Juan Carlos Hidalgo Source Type: blogs
Chile's Proposed Education Reforms Would Kill the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs
Andrew J. Coulson
For the past three decades, Chile has had a nationwide voucher-like school choice program. Parents can choose among public and private schools, and the government picks up most or all of the tab. But, since the election last fall of a left-leaning government led by Michelle Bachelet, the future of the program has been in doubt. In May, President Bachelet introduced a first round of reforms aimed at dismantling aspects of the program, though these are still under debate. I’ve written about what that could mean for Chile’s educational performance and equality in today’s edition of the San...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 15, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Andrew J. Coulson Source Type: blogs
The Future of Dollarization in Ecuador
Gabriela Calderon de Burgos
A new “monetary and finance” law that was approved by Ecuador’s National Assembly in July, is expected to be signed into law any day now. Many suspect that this marks the beginning of the end for dollarization in Ecuador, which began in January of 2000. But the underlying threat to dollarization is the incessant growth of public spending. Losing dollarization would be a sad development, considering it is what has protected Ecuadorians from one of the worst evils of populism: high inflation.
The remarkable contribution dollarization has made to the Ecuadorian economy is worth noting. A 201...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 27, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Gabriela Calderon de Burgos Source Type: blogs
“Give me your tired, your poor…”
The rapid influx of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the last few months has spurred a national conversation regarding the United States’ role in offering refuge to these children, the majority of whom are fleeing widespread gang violence and delinquency in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. A key talking point for some in the debate has become the supposed threat to public health that these children pose.
Pundits and politicians, from city councils to the U.S. Congress, have latched on to the alarmist claim that immigrant children are carrying diseases with t...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - August 1, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Access Advocacy Consumer Health Care Disparities Global Health Policy Politics Publc Health Source Type: blogs
In Memory of Carlos Ball
Ian Vásquez
I’m sad to report that Venezuelan journalist and Cato adjunct scholar Carlos Ball passed away last week. He was 75. Carlos was a champion of liberty and a long-time friend to so many of us in the freedom movement in the Americas. His life was a testimony to the power of ideas, and he lived it true to his classical-liberal convictions.
Carlos was a co-founder of CEDICE, the market-liberal think tank in Caracas that celebrated its 30th anniversary this year and with whom Cato has worked closely for many years (and that has been severely harassed by the Chavista regime). In the 1980s, Carlos was the editor of ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 17, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Ian Vásquez Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update Satellite — 07-14-2014
Practicing telemedicine may just get a whole lot easier. Federation of State Medical Boards creating an interstate “compact” that would reduce barriers by providing an “expedited license” to physicians who wish to practice medicine in multiple states. The physician has to establish a state of “principal license” and then may apply to the “Interstate Commission” to receive a license in another state after the “applicable fees” have been paid. The hundreds of dollars per year paid to each state to maintain licensure don’t appear to be one of the barriers that ...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - July 15, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update Satellite — 06-23-2014
The right to carry a concealed weapon only exists if your doctor says so. Many states are requiring that physicians certify whether patients are competent to carry a concealed weapon. Some states require mandatory reporting of those deemed not competent to carry a concealed weapon. Of course, the natural extension of such laws is that if the doctors make an inappropriate determination, then the doctors can be held liable if the certifiee does something inappropriate with the weapon.
This New England Journal of Medicine article shows that many doctors aren’t comfortable making that determination.
Then again, I’v...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - June 24, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
A Grim Update on European Tax Policy
Daniel J. Mitchell
I wrote the other day that Americans, regardless of all the bad policy we get from Washington, should be thankful we’re not stuck in an economic graveyard like Venezuela.
But we also should be happy we’re not Europeans. This is a point I’ve made before, usually accompanied by data showing that Americans have significantly higher living standards than their cousins on the other side of the Atlantic.
It’s now time to re-emphasize that message. The European Commission has issued its annual report on “Taxation Trends” and it is–at least for wonks and others who care about f...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 18, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
Obama Understands the Improving State of Humanity
Stephanie Rugolo
On Wednesday, President Obama stated an irrefutable fact: the state of humanity is better than any time before. He said,
…if you had to choose any moment to be born in human history, not knowing what your position was gonna be, who you were gonna be, you’d choose this time. The world is less violent than it has ever been. It is healthier than it has ever been. It is more tolerant than it has ever been. It is better fed than it has ever been. It is more educated than it has ever been. Terrible things happen around the world every single day but the trend lines of progress are unmistakable.
This is ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 16, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Stephanie Rugolo Source Type: blogs
Measuring Misery in Latin America: More Dollarization, Please
Steve H. Hanke
In my misery index, I calculate a ranking for all countries where suitable data from the Economist Intelligence Unit exist. My misery index — a simple sum of inflation, lending rates, and unemployment rates, minus year-on-year per capita GDP growth — is used to construct a ranking for 89 countries. The table below is a sub-index of all Latin American countries presented in the world misery index.
A higher score in the misery index means that the country, and its constituents, are more miserable. Indeed, this is a table where you do not want to be first.
Venezuela and Argentina, armed with aggressive so...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 10, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
HIV-Positive Venezuelans Are Desperately Seeking HIV Medications- Please Help
Even though Venezuela is the third largest oil exporter to the United States and has the largest oil reserves in the world, you would not know that if you visited the country now.
The country's infrastructure is in ruins. State officials have been able to pocket much of the oil revenues and imposed illogical dollar exchange restrictions that are suffocating the economy and its people. The (Source: Nelson Vergel's HIV Blog)
Source: Nelson Vergel's HIV Blog - June 6, 2014 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: Nelson Vergel Source Type: blogs
Case of the Week 303
Dear Readers,In honor of Mother's Day, I have a special case for you:A firm nodule measuring approximately 2 cm in diameter was removed from the scalp of a man from Southern Venezuela. The following histologic sections show the adult female (mother) worm and her offspring. In this infection, the adult worms stay in one location while the migrating offspring wreak havoc in the host. Diagnosis?Nodule, H&E, 20x total magnificationCross-sections of the female worm, H&E, 100x Female and offspring, H&E, 400x H&E, 200xAs a special bonus, here is Blaine's poem a week early:Some poo...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - May 11, 2014 Category: Pathologists Source Type: blogs
Another Defective IMF study on Inequality and Redistribution
Alan Reynolds
“IMF Warns on the Dangers of Inequality,” screams the headline of a story by Ian Talley in the Wall Street Journal. The IMF – which Talley dubs “the world’s top economic institution”– is said to be “warning that rising income inequality is weighing on global economic growth and fueling political instability.”
This has been a familiar chorus from the White House/IMF songbook since late 2011, when President Obama’s Special Assistant David Lipton became Deputy Managing Director of the IMF. It echoes a December 2012 New York Times piece, “Income Inequality May Take Toll on G...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 15, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Alan Reynolds Source Type: blogs
Will Venezuela Be Next?
Steve H. Hanke
Last year, Nicholas Krus and I published a chapter, “World Hyperinflations”, in the Routledge Handbook of Major Events in Economic History. We documented 56 hyperinflations – cases in which monthly inflation rates exceeded 50% per month. Only seven of those hyperinflations have savaged Latin America (see the accompanying table).
At present, the world’s highest inflation resides in Latin America, namely in Venezuela. The Johns Hopkins – Cato Institute Troubled Currencies Project, which I direct, estimates that Venezuela’s implied annual inflation rate is 302%. Will Venezuela be the eighth country...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 4, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
