Wrap Up For September '14

While this month's wrap up doesn't have any particular theme, there were plenty of links to gather over the course of the month, and I've included further observations where possible. I hope that all of my readers had an enjoyable September!

In the future, healthcare options will likely include local settings which do not always involve the compromise of expensive - and often distant - hospital stays of which family members can travel for only so often. That can only be a good thing, especially given that infection risk during hospital stays is only growing over time.
http://www.hngn.com/articles/41668/20140908/infection-risk-increases-each-day-hospitalisation.htm

An interesting perspective with this link, but I was reminded of the "spin factor" which Kevin Erdmann attributed to article headlines in last month's wrap up! Hence the given inequality framing can be misleading. Such framing seems to suggest Piketty "solutions" which only make it more difficult to envision coordination strategies for resource needs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/income-inequality-is-hurting-state-tax-revenue-report-says/2014/09/14/12f31a8c-3c59-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html

Speaking of state monies...
http://taxfoundation.org/blog/how-high-are-sales-taxes-your-state

"Labor Market Fluidity and Economic Performance" by Davis and Haltiwanger,
http://www.kc.frb.org/publicat/sympos/2014/083014-1.pdf
From the abstract:

These results suggest that the U.S. economy faced serious impediments to high employment rates well before the Great Recession, and that sustained high employment is unlikely to return without restoring labor market fluidity.

Arnold Kling noted that Davis and Haltiwanger mostly offered speculations as to why this was the case. Indeed much of what has occurred in recent decades is anecdotal and dependent on a range of circumstance which vary depending on income and region. What I have experienced in terms of economic change, is often different from that which readers have observed, for instance.

State unemployment rates for August:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/09/19/this-state-had-just-2-8-unemployment-in-august-heres-how-all-50-states-fared/?mod=marketbeat

As it turns out, some property rights are better than others - a thoughtful article from Eli Dourado:
http://theumlaut.com/2013/12/11/property-rights-versus-property-institutions/

It's good to see that skills sets are being emphasized for resumes now. That goes beyond some of the old definitions: The resume section that matters more than you think

Of course in terms of skills arbitrage for knowledge use systems, it would be helpful to emphasize both hard and soft skill sets. Along these same lines in coordinated community settings: expanded versions of one's resume might include personal non fiction library favorites for those who are interested in pursuing what the time arbitrageur has already explored. Good non fiction has a wealth of information that schools cannot be expected to provide. Another option for self promotion in these kinds of environments might include semester "meets" days in which varying groups can promote the kinds of skills sets they would like to utilize with others in the coming months.

Tim Ferguson of the Forbes staff called this a great step toward an "inclusive" economy.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/09/22/texans-created-over-a-thousand-local-businesses-after-texas-eased-restrictions-on-selling-food-made-at-home/

One of the questions floating around this month came from Peter Thiel: What important truth do very few people agree with you on? Regular readers probably suspect my answer: Voluntary time use in aggregate can be tapped as a new and direct source of wealth. Because evenly matched time coordination needs no support from redistribution or production residuals, what had been fiscal activity is possible to achieve as monetary activity instead. No more austerity necessary...among other things!

I wouldn't be surprised if some aspects of local job opportunities play into this as well...
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/09/25/student-loan-defaults-vary-wildly-by-state/?mod=WSJBlog

Lots of survey results in this Neil Irwin post. Not all of them what people might expect:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/upshot/americans-are-ok-with-big-business-its-business-lobbying-power-they-hate.html?ref=business&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1

Tyler Cowen highlights an article from Vaclav Smil. Just think how important a scarcely thought about product like wood chips actually is. How Prominent are European renewables?