One of those effects—severe real estate blight—is immediately obvious to any tourist. Abandoned warehouses line the riverfront and entire neighborhoods in north St. Louis are decaying.   

But two unlikely allies are trying to solve the problem by philanthropic means.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports on an effort by a new organization, the St. Louis Blight Authority, to address the blight crisis by demolishing vacant and abandoned homes:

Tech billionaire Jack Dorsey, a St. Louis native and co-founder and CEO of both Square Inc. and Twitter, along with Detroit native Bill Pulte, whose grandfather founded national homebuilder Pulte Homes, were paying for the demolitions — $500,000 for a pilot program to completely clear more than 130 lots in a four-block area of the northwest St. Louis neighborhood hard hit by abandonment and vacancy.

However, the Post-Dispatch article explains the initial pilot phase will only knock down 30 structures. It’s a good first step, but it will make trivial progress toward solving the problem. St. Louis has 7,000 vacant buildings and more than 12,000 vacant lots.

The blight crisis will not solve itself, and Missouri’s major cities already use economic development programs that haven’t been shown to improve the situation. Could private resources, invested in an ambitious project, successfully remove blight in St. Louis? And is the St. Louis Blight Authority the entity to usher in success?

From the Post-Dispatch: “Dorsey and Pulte hope to inspire other philanthropists to contribute to the effort and perhaps expand it to other city neighborhoods.”

With the price tag for total blight removal estimated at $70 million, inspiration won’t cover the bill. But it’s a place to start.   

The post St. Louis Blight Authority: Philanthropy Might Provide What Markets Cannot appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Silver and Hyman reveal the key flaws in America’s health care system, which replaces consumer choice with government control and third-party payment, driving up the cost of health care. Prices will fall, quality will improve, and medicine will become more patient-friendly only when consumers take charge. As Overcharged explains, when health care providers are subjected to the same competitive forces that shape other industries, they will either deliver better services more cheaply or risk being replaced by someone who will.

Overcharged is getting the attention of top free marketeers and conservative influencers. George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author raves that “Silver and Hyman frighten us with the facts and point to ways the biggest player in the health care game—the government—can stop making matters worse.” Show-Me Institute has also noticed the usefulness of Silver and Hyman’s free-market solutions to the national health care problem. We have invited the authors to Missouri to discuss their book. Details for the event are attached. We hope to see you there!

Get Tickets: https://showmeinstitute.org/overcharged-why-americans-pay-too-much-healthcare

Spread the Word: https://www.facebook.com/events/264480817839154/

The post Why is American Health Care So Expensive? Because You’ve Been Overcharged appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

While other unemployment statistics seem to be trending positively, 15 percent of men who should otherwise be working (according to historical standards) now “seem to have left the labor force permanently,” no longer even bothering to look for work. The consequences of these numbers go beyond their effect on national economic output; they threaten the national spirit.  The saying, “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” is backed by data, including a huge drop in happiness associated with unemployment. Research also links joblessness and disability with America’s deadly opioid epidemic.

Glaeser asserts that a governmental “war on work” is driving this problem.  He points to a series of programs incentivizing joblessness such as food stamps and housing voucher payments.

To solve this crisis, Glaeser argues that we must educate, reform social services, empower entrepreneurs, and even subsidize incentivize employment. That is an ambitious—but promising—agenda for ending the war on work before it consumes a generation of Americans.

I hope you can come hear him lay out that agenda on Wednesday, May 9 at St. Louis University. The lecture will begin at 6:00 p.m.

The post Edward Glaeser to Discuss War on Work in St. Louis appeared first on Show-Me Institute.