Words and Numbers

There's a very noticeable difference between flying first class and flying economy, and it seems unfair. But what people don't realize is that the people flying first class are the reason why economy tickets are so much cheaper, and that the mere existence of economy tickets is proof of how much progress we've made in economics and class equality: once upon a time in 1979, an average domestic round-trip flight cost $617, adjusting for inflation. That cost is down to $366 today – a 40% drop. How did that happen?This week on Words and Numbers, Antony Davies and James R.

Amazon's offer to buy Whole Foods for $13.7 billion sounds pretty great to both parties, but it seems that isn't good enough. The proposal has a lot of people worried about Amazon becoming an indestructible monopoly, and the government is all too happy to step in and settle the issue. But this concern ignores consumers' own preferences as well as business and entrepreneurial history. This week in Words and Numbers, Antony Davies and James R.

Ted Cruz recently asserted that the United States military needs to be sent to Mexico to attack the drug cartels head-on. This is a bad idea. But so is the drug war itself, both constitutionally and logically. Many who support the war do so with the best of intentions, but has it really helped? Or has it done more harm than good, like the Prohibition of the 1920s? Is this war even legal in the first place?
James Harrigan and Antony Davies discuss these questions in this week's Words and Numbers.

The common thought among young people is that our rocketing population growth is going to overpopulate the earth. But given the number of people in poverty, it looks like population growth is actually good for poverty – more people means more brains, which means more ideas, inventions, and innovations.
This week on Words and Numbers, Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan talk about how and why the world is improving despite widespread negativity towards the idea of a growing world population, and why that negativity persists regardless of the prosperity we see every day.

Poverty is a big deal – it affects about 41 million people in the United States every year – yet the federal government spends a huge amount of money to end poverty. How can this be? And how do we even measure poverty in the first place? This week on Words and Numbers, Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan answer these questions and delve into what can be done to help the poor.

We tend to demonize people who make money – how dare they have more than us? But that negative reaction forgets the voluntary role we play in profit-making every day. This week in Words and Numbers, Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan discuss just how good it is to earn a profit, and the vital difference between that and forcing money from people.

A lot of people assume that any degree increases your income over the course of your life, but it actually seriously depends on what major you choose and what career you go into. This week on Words & Numbers, Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan break down the numbers on what your college degree is actually worth.

From Blockbuster employees to the men who removed horse carcasses from the streets of New York, we’ve seen creative destruction end jobs as unnecessary or unwanted products are replaced with new, better ones. But as surely as creative destruction will replace Uber with self-driving cars, we’ll see strict government regulation to try to keep the old ways from going away.

It turns out that measuring unemployment is a tricky thing. When you get it sorted out as best you can, you find two things: the bad news is that our employment rate isn't as good as we thought it was. The good news is that things are getting better.

People are talking about the minimum wage a lot. They always have. But with the government's plan to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, the talk is even more prevalent than usual. But why now? Why is the government trying to keep us talking about it now?