On that Economist Interview...

Economist: "What is Trumponomics and how does it differ from standard Republican economics?"

Trump: "We have nations where…they’ll get as much as 100% of a tax or a tariff for a certain product and for the same product we get nothing, OK? It’s very unfair."

This betrays his fundamental misunderstanding of trade between nations and competitive advantage.

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A Layman's Economic Case for Universal Healthcare

In the US, there's a massive debate about universal healthcare. Republicans tend argue that it's too much of a budget cost or that citizens should be 'free to choose their own' healthcare. Democrats tend to argue that healthcare should be a basic right offered by the state. Lost somewhere in translation here is the economic case for universal coverage. Neither party seems to want to go into it, but it's important to understand how healthcare isn't a regular market, and why it gets so expensive when individuals have to shop for their own coverage.

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Why We Need Healthcare Reform

Bloomberg Report: The U.S. Lags in Life Expectancy Gains

In the past 40 years, America has dropped from above average to below average life expectancy among developed countries, despite the fact that we spend significantly more per capita on healthcare. 

 Life expectancy at birth, 1970 and 2011

“Life expectancy [in the U.S.] is now more than a year below the OECD average of 80.1,” the OECD said in a press statement, “compared to one year above the average in 1970.”

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report

Every single country doing better than us has some form of socialized healthcare. Purely privatized healthcare for the vast majority of Americans is not fine. The Affordable Care Act may have some serious issues in both implementation and, you know, affordability, but the system is a step in the right direction. It needs to be fixed, not scrapped.

Unless, of course, someone got serious about an actual single-payer system.