Most read Realitybase posts in April

The Citigroup Plutonomy Memos With key quotations from documents that are being disappeared. This post has been the #1 response to a Google search for "plutonomy memo."

The history of US per-capita petroleum consumption will surprise you.  A graph and other data show US per-capita consumption of petroleum is down substantially from the 1970s, has been very stable since 1983 because of CAFE standards, and has fluctuated only slightly with retail price changes.

"The American Dream died in February 1973 With graphs showing stagnation of inflation-adjusted middle class incomes since the 1970s after strong and steady post-WWII growth

The Dysfunction and Corruption of Our Healthcare System, Its Damage to the National Economy and other Basic Healthcare Matters (Guest Post) Describing a system that is destroying American business global competitiveness, that violates fundamental insurance risk principles, and that has inherent conflicts of interest preventing quality national health care delivery and cost efficiency, and proposing a solution.

Comparative Advantage—The Unicorn of Free Trade Collection of sources and analyses demonstrating that the assumptions of classic Ricardian trade theory rarely if ever align with real-world conditions.

Two hypotheses for why US CEO pay is so high Charts show that US CEO pay is about double that in other advanced countries, meaning there is either a shortage of talent in the US or the US CEO pay market is broken.

One chart refutes three myths about US foreign trade. About Smoot-Hawley, the post-WWII export "boom," and "self-balancing" trade.

US job creation has been declining since April 2000 and is now in freefall. Discussion around a dramatic graph showing the US employment-to-population ratio strongly increasing until 2000 followed by a devastating loss in 10 years of all the gains made in the previous 20 years.

What's the market alternative to this big government program? On a per-vehicle-mile-traveled basis, conventional command-and-control regulations have reduced deaths by 85%, tailpipe pollutants by 89%, and fuel consumption by 40%.

The Prius fallacy fallacy Data refute the claim that when people have more fuel efficient vehicles they tend to drive substantially more miles.