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Minimum Logic
The question is often raised: “Why would you ever want to raise the minimum wage when you could raise the earned income tax credit instead?”. In other words, if you’ve got a choice between two ways to...
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Minimum Logic, Part 2
Yesterday’s post touched on several related points, and I’m afraid the most important one got buried near the end, so I want to repeat it: 1) In the presence of an effective minimum wage, all benefits...
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Are You Smarter Than Google?
I’m not sure where this problem originated. I heard it first from John Conley, and have often assigned it to my classes. Google has used it to weed out job candidates. The answer that Google expects is...
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Are You Smarter Than Google? — Part Two
Today I’ll offer the “official” solution to yesterday’s puzzle — that is, the solution that Google has apparently expected from its job candidates. This is also the solution I gave when I first saw the...
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Are You Smarter Than Google? — Part Three
To review the bidding: Two days ago I posed a puzzle about 10 pirates dividing 100 coins. Yesterday, I presented what appears to be an airtight argument that the coins must be divided...
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Nature or Nurture?
My sister snapped this picture of my Dad and me sitting on a couch: No, this wasn’t posed. It’s just how we happened to be sitting. Click here to comment or read others’ comments.
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Ask Not What the Church Can Do For You; Ask What You Can Do For the Church
Pope Francis is coming to New York, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan is disturbed about ticket-scalping: “Tickets for events with Pope Francis are distributed free [via lottery] for a reason — to enable as...
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McCloskey at Chicago
For an upcoming Festschrift, I was recently asked to write an account of Dee (then Don) McCloskey‘s years as a brilliant teacher at the University of Chicago, her influence on a generation of...
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Bad Planning
In a bid for ongoing taxpayer support, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards will be appearing before Congress today. It’s reported that as part of her testimony, she will admit that only 1...
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Poison Apple
There are about a million reasons why I hate my iPhone, but this one pretty much sums it all up. On my phone, I’ve got quite a few files that were not downloaded from any of my other devices. These...
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