The Political Economist

Is higher education worth it? According to the latest report from PayScale  (HT: The Economist ), the answer is: it depends on what you study. An obvious answer, but let's look at the data nonetheless: Source: The Economist  Here's the main result: "Engineers and computer scientists do best, earning an impressive 20-year annualised return of 12% on their college fees (the S&P 500 yielded just 7.8%). Engineering graduates from run-of-the-mill colleges do only slightly worse than those from highly selective ones. Business and economics degrees also pay well, delivering a solid 8.7% average return. Courses in the arts or the humanities offer vast spiritual rewards, of course, but less impressive material ones. Some yield negative returns. An arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art had a hefty 20-year net negative return of $92,000, for example." You can check out the distribution of all occupations in more detail on the following link . The ...

It's been a rough few weeks, but Europe and Greece have finally reached an agreement . Or to be more precise, the Greeks have caved in to the demands of the financial markets, just as I predicted they would in my last blog post . Again, I hate to blow my own horn (but let's be honest, I need to); I was right once again in predicting the outcome in Greece. This aligns well with my track record of being correct on Greece in 2011 , 2012 , 2013 and, well, 2015 . Just saying.  So what was in the new deal? In a nutshell here is what the Greek government has pledged to do in return for the extension of the Eurogroup bailout program (much needed to maintain solvency of the Greek government): Combat tax evasion (new tax policies) : broadening the definition of tax evasion and fraud, while disbanding tax immunity. This includes reforming the collection of VAT (introducing technology), modernizing the income tax code, and altogether creating a new culture of tax compliance. Keep in...