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| Preface | |
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| Introduction: Economics and Economists: The Basis for Controversy | |
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| Microeconomic Issues | |
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| Are Profits the Only Business of Business? | |
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| Yes: Milton Friedman, from "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits," The New York Times Magazine (September 13, 1970) | |
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| No: Robert Almeder, from "Morality in the Marketplace: Reflections on the Friedman Doctrine," in Milton Snoeyenbos, Robert Almeder, and James Humber, eds., Business Ethics, rev. ed. (Prometheus Press, 1998) | |
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| Should the Regulations Regarding Overtime Pay Be Changed? | |
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| Yes: Elaine Chao, from "Bush Administration Proposal," Congressional Digest (March 2004) | |
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| No: Ross Eisenbrey, from "On the Department of Labor's Final Overtime Regulations," Testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (May 4, 2004) | |
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| Is There Discrimination in U.S. Labor Markets? | |
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| Yes: William A. Darity, Jr., and Patrick L. Mason, from "Evidence on Discrimination in Employment: Codes of Color, Codes of Gender," Journal of Economic Perspectives (Spring 1998) | |
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| No: James J. Heckman, from "Detecting Discrimination," Journal of Economic Perspectives (Spring 1998) | |
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| Will the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and Its Drug Discount Cards Lower the Cost of Prescription Drugs for Seniors? | |
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| Yes: Mark Merritt, from Testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance (June 8, 2004) | |
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| No: Robert M. Hayes, from Testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance (June 8, 2004) | |
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| Should Markets Be Allowed to Solve the Shortage in Body Parts? | |
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| Yes: Charles T. Carlstrom and Christy D. Rollow, from "The Rationing of Transplantable Organs: A Troubled Lineup," The Cato Journal (Fall 1997) | |
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| No: Nancy Scheper-Hughes, from "The End of the Body: The Global Traffic in Organs for Transplant Surgery," Organs Watch, http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/biotech/organswatch/pages/cadraft.html (May 14, 1998) | |
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| Is It Time to Reform Medical Malpractice Litigation? | |
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| Yes: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, from "Confronting the New Health Care Crisis: Improving Health Care Quality and Lowering Costs by Fixing Our Medical Liability System" (July 24, 2002) | |
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| No: Jackson Williams, from "Bush's Medical Malpractice Disinformation Campaign: A Rebuttal to the HHS Report on Medical Liability," A Report of Public Citizen's Congress Watch (January 2003) | |
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| Macroeconomic Issues | |
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| Is Wal-Mart Good for the Economy? | |
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| Yes: Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, from "Wal-Mart Supercenters: What's in Store for Southern California?" http://www.laedc.info/data/documents.asp (January 2004) | |
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| No: Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, from "Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart," http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/2004/wal-mart-labor-record16feb04.htm (February 16, 2004) | |
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| Should Social Security Be Changed to Include Personal Retirement Accounts? | |
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| Yes: The White House, from "Strengthening Social Security for the 21st Century," http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/socialsecurity/200501/strengtheningsocialsecurity.html (February 2005) | |
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| No: Dean Baker, from "Bush's Numbers Racket: Why Social Security Privatization Is a Phony Solution to a Phony Problem," The American Prospect Online Edition (January 14, 2005) | |
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| Should the Double Taxation of Corporate Dividends Be Eliminated? | |
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| Yes: Norbert J. Michel, Alfredo Goyburu, and Ralph A. Rector, from "The Economic and Fiscal Effects of Ending the Federal Double Taxation of Dividends," A Working Paper of the Heritage Center for Data Analysis (January 27, 2003) | |
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| No: Joel Friedman and Robert Greenstein, from "Exempting Corporate Dividends From Individual Income Taxes," A Report of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (January 11, 2003) | |
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| Are Credit Card Companies Exploiting American Consumers? | |
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| Yes: Robert D. Manning, from "Perpetual Debt, Predatory Plastic," Southern Exposure (Summer 2003) | |
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| No: Michael F. McEneney, from "Written Statement of Michael F. McEneney on Behalf of the Consumer Bankers Association," Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit (September 15, 2004) | |
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| Is It Time to Abolish the Minimum Wage? | |
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| Yes: Thomas Rustici, from "A Public Choice View of the Minimum Wage," The Cato Journal (Spring/Summer 1985) | |
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| No: Charles Craypo, from "In Defense of Minimum Wages," An Original Essay Written for This Volume (2002) | |
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| Are Declining Caseloads a Sign of Successful Welfare Reform? | |
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| Yes: Michael J. New, from "Welfare Reform That Works: Explaining the Welfare Caseload Decline, 1996-2000," Policy Analysis No. 435 (May 7, 2002) | |
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| No: Evelyn Z. Brodkin, from "Requiem for Welfare," Dissent (Winter 2003) | |
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| The World Around Us | |
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| Are Protectionist Policies Bad for America? | |
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| Yes: Murray N. Rothbard, from "Protectionism and the Destruction of Prosperity," Ludwig von Mises Institute, http://mises.org/fullarticle.asp?title=Protectionism&month=1 (July 13, 1998) | |
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| No: Patrick J. Buchanan, from "Free Trade Is Not Free," Address to the Chicago council on Foreign Relations (November 18, 1998) | |
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| Should We Sweat About Sweatshops? | |
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| Yes: Richard Appelbaum and Peter Dreier, from "The Campus Anti-Sweatshop Movement," The American Prospect (September-October 1999) | |
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| No: Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, from "Two Cheers for Sweatshops," The New York Times Magazine (September 24, 2000) | |
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| Are the Costs of Global Warming Too High to Ignore? | |
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| Yes: Lester R. Brown, from Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth (W. W. Norton, 2001) | |
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| No: Lenny Bernstein, from "Climate Change and Ecosystems," A Report of the George C. Marshall Institute (August 2002) | |
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| Do Living Wage Laws Improve Economic Conditions in Cities? | |
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| Yes: Chris Tilly, from "Next Steps for the Living-Wage Movement," Dollars & Sense (September-October 2001) | |
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| No: Steven Malanga, from "How the 'Living-Wage' Sneaks Socialism into Cities," City Journal (Winter 2003) | |
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| Has the North American Free Trade Agreement Hurt the American Economy? | |
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| Yes: Robert E. Scott, from "NAFTA's Hidden Costs: Trade Agreement Results in Job Losses, Growing Inequality, and Wage Suppression for the United States," EPI Briefing Paper (April 2001) | |
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| No: Daniel T. Griswold, from "NAFTA at 10: An Economic and Foreign Policy Success," Free Trade Bulletin (December 2002) | |