This paper examines a looming possible crisis in many Americans’ retirement plans due to the proliferation of annuity products in their retirement investment portfolios. As defined benefit pension plans have almost completely disappeared as a means of retirement savings and have been replaced...

This paper looks at how downward socio-economic mobility of displaced workers is fueling the rise of right-wing populism. After a review of relevant literature on worker displacement and angst follows an analysis of its implications for US politics. Data from government sources suggest that...

Over the last 10 years or so there has been a resurgence of interest in the English king Richard III, especially after his remains are found in 2012 after being lost or missing for centuries. Prior to this, there are many publications, reports, and documentaries alluding to a “smear”...

In 2017 the US Congress passes and President Donald J. Trump signs the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Part of the legislation allows states to create economic opportunity zones (EOZs), census tracts which will be targeted for business investment and economic development through federal tax...

This research note/paper examines several factors that have been mentioned and debated as determinants of how Britain moves from feudalism to mercantilism and then to capitalism by way of agricultural and industrial innovations and also how it arrives at the cusp of the industrial revolution. Of...

With the current Occupy Movement occurring on Wall Street and other parts of the globe, a lot of attention has recently been given to growing inequality and how much the top 1 percent of households have in terms of income versus the other 99 percent in the United States. Mainstream economists...

Much has been written over the years about longer emergency medical services (EMS) response times in rural areas as opposed to urban areas. Yet within urban areas, outside of case studies of certain cities, not much has been written about longer EMS response times in newer, fringe suburban or...

Many writers have covered the negative consequences of sprawl on community life and urban development in the US over the years. This paper looks at how sprawl impacts traffic fatalities and EMS response times in the Southeastern United States.

The mainstream or neoclassical economics view that labor is rewarded according to its productivity has been extended to managers and management teams as justification for the levels of compensation that they receive. Additionally, the management concept of “span of management” or “span of...

This research note performs some limited empirical assessments of the Baran and Sweezy (1966) contention that most research and development (R&D) efforts in the US are “wasted” at the macroeconomic level in that as R&D succeeds by absorbing a little of the excess economic surplus generated...