The news is full of stories about existing government policies, new policy proposals, old policies. You should end this course with another way to evaluate and discuss many of those policies. A first step is to look critically at news stories. For this discussion everyone needs to give us a link to an article you found interesting, pull a quote from that article and annotate it with a secondary source either supporting or demonstrating a problem with the article. For your second post look at someone else's article and tell us how the theory from the course either supports the policy or suggests the policy is a mistake.

For example:

Denver has a green roof initiative that was actually implemented in stages. Here is an article on that initiative: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/denvers-revised-green-roof-ordinance-takes-root(Links to an external site.) This article suggests that green roofs are more costly to build in this quote "Opponents said the ordinance would drive up the costs of construction "and make Denver's [real estate] market even more expensive."" That is important - economic theory would suggest that increasing building costs will both cause overall building to fall and prices (rent/sales prices) to increase. You can see this by shifting the supply curve up and left to reflect the increased costs of building.

A possible annotation for that quote is from the University of Michigan - https://italladdsup.umn.edu/news/greenroof3(Links to an external site.) "One downside to green roofs is that the upfront cost of a green roof is greater than that of a conventional roof. In a study done by the University of Michigan, they compared the costs of the two types of roofs for a 21,000 square foot roof. From that study, they concluded that the green roof would cost $464,000, whereas a conventional roof would only cost $335,000. However, those researchers did determine that the green roof would save an additional $200,000 over its lifetime. "

That doesn't completely solve the cost problem as there is a difference between building costs and running costs, but it does open the door for more research.

A more obvious example is the $400 California is talking about giving residents because gas prices are high.

Your turn! Consider articles on increased government spending, Covid shut downs, etc. Even safety laws are interesting (for example, the car seat requirement has reduced the number of families with more than 2 children.)