by Jack Nicastro, Motive, March 4, 2025.
Excerpt:
Empower, a trip reservation service, has been hounded by Washington, D.C., regulatorsbecause it started its operations in 2020. CEO Joshua Sear shall be arrested on Wednesday for violating the Division of For-Rent Autos’ (DFHV) stop and desist order if the app doesn’t shut down by then. Mayor Muriel Bowser has the ability to direct the DFHV to rescind its order, which might enable Empower to proceed working within the metropolis.
Sear based Empower in 2019, not as a transportation firm however as a software program firm that serves unbiased skilled drivers. Empower differs from the flagship ride-share companies in a number of methods. Not like Uber and Lyft, drivers who use Empower don’t obtain 1099 kinds—they aren’t contractors, however clients, in keeping with the corporate.
The corporate additionally doesn’t accumulate a share of each fare, nor does it set them; its drivers set their very own charges by adjusting their minimal and base fares, per minute, per mile, and surge costs as they see match. They then pay Empower a flat month-to-month price of $349.99 for entry to the D.C. Month-to-month Platinum plan, which “provides drivers with unlimited access to Empower’s software and support services.” Empower’s instructed charges are “set so that drivers make 20% – 25% more on average than they would if they were driving on behalf of Uber/Lyft [and] riders also save 15-20% on average.”
by Liz Wolfe, Motive, March 5, 2025.
Excerpt:
“Part of the confusion comes from Social Security’s software system based on the COBOL programming language, which has a lack of date type,” reported the Related Press final month in response to DOGE stories about improper funds. “This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago.” (The company auto-stops funds to these older than 115.) The Social Safety Administration’s inspector normal has admitted as a lot: The company is de facto struggling to determine the way to “properly annotate death information in its database” per the A.P., and there are almost 20 million Social Safety numbers of individuals born in 1920 and earlier who haven’t been marked as useless. However Trump is conflating “not marked as dead in a database” with “received benefits”—a fully wild leap we’ve no proof to assist. Actually, the July 2023 report from the inspector normal notes that “almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments.”
by Timothy Taylor, Conversable Economist, March 5, 2025.
Excerpt:
The US uncertainty index shouldn’t be official authorities knowledge. It’s primarily based on a way developed by three economists, Scott R. Baker, Nick Bloom, and Steven J. Davis. I talked about their strategy right here when it was first being developed again 2012. They mix three sources of information: “the frequency of newspaper articles that reference economic uncertainty and the role of policy; the number of federal tax code provisions that are set to expire in coming years; and the extent of disagreement among economic forecasters about future inflation and future government spending on goods and services.” The typical worth from 1985-2010 is arbitrarily set at 100. Thus, you possibly can see spikes throughout the Nice Recession, the pandemic, and now early in 2025.
Editorial Board, Washington Publish, March 4, 2025.
Excerpt:
All this might price the standard U.S. family about $1,245 in misplaced buying energy, in keeping with a projection from the Finances Lab at Yale. One other mannequin estimates that if Canada, China and Mexico retaliate symmetrically — imposing same-size tariffs on U.S. items — American incomes would fall 0.5 p.c in actual phrases. Actual wages in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio would fall by virtually 0.6 p.c.
To see how this works, contemplate the auto business, essentially the most built-in in North America. Thirty-eight p.c of the worth of automobiles imported from Mexico comes from elements and elements made in the USA. Seventeen to 36 p.c of the make-up of Cadillac fashions assembled in the USA is sourced in Mexico. Auto elements cross North American borders a number of occasions earlier than ending up put collectively on a vendor’s lot. A 25 p.c tariff would increase their value on each crossing, decimating the business’s competitiveness.
DRH word: Washington Publish proprietor Jeff Bezos not too long ago advised his editorial writers that they need to write editorials in favor of free markets. This editorial is implicitly in favor of free markets. Perhaps the editorial writers are paying consideration?
by Jeffrey Miron and Karthi Gottipati, Libertarian Land, March 5, 2025.
Excerpt:
Libertarians, nevertheless, distinguish between government-imposed mandates and people set by non-public entities, emphasizing the unintended and probably dangerous penalties of presidency mandates. For example, one research means that such mandates eroded public belief in authorities establishments and, paradoxically, made vaccine-hesitant people even much less prepared to get vaccinated.
That stated, libertarians defend the proper of personal entities to require vaccinations for workers, clients, or different stakeholders.
A latest research illustrates the effectiveness of this private-sector strategy:
Our findings reveal that employer vaccine mandates considerably elevated workers vaccination charges. This had life-saving results on the well being of nursing house residents, who skilled reductions in each COVID-19 circumstances and mortality. For each two services that applied a mandate, roughly one life was saved. Given {that a} typical nursing house homes solely 100 residents, this impression is substantial.
Observe: The accompanying image is a graph of financial uncertainty.
