This a good piece on what’s driving nurse turnover at hospitals. Most of the factors are shaped by the employer (hospitals) and reflect monopsony power. Low pay drives turnover. Understaffing drives turnover. Even safety is shaped in part by the hospital—patients get irate when they wait too long. Good anecdote at the end of how Emory cut turnover by boosting pay.

It’s very important to reject this tradeoff presented in today’s NYT cover story—that governments can’t address the needs of its citizens without angering bond markets. Set aside the (highly debated) claim that gov’t spending crowds out private investment by lifting interest rates. Governments can confront the affordability problem in myriad ways *outside* of gov’t spending. Targeted price controls, antitrust investigations, price-gouging regulations, the use of government countervailing buying power, the threat of government provisioning. The list goes on. Ditto for raising real wages, another source of social unrest: unionization efforts, raising the minimum wage, eliminating non competes, ending mandatory arbitration clauses in employee contracts, merger enforcement. There are no excuses. Take care of your damn people.