Brace yourself. This isn’t going to be pleasant. If you’re in a bad mood or get easily upset, you may wish to pass on reading this article. The country is in even worse shape economically than we thought. We awoke on Feb. 14 to find that this year’s federal budget deficit is going to...
The news from Egypt has thrust President Obama’s State of the Union off the front pages. While that news is critical, so is further analysis of the State of the Union, especially from an economic perspective. My previous column focused on the political dimensions of the State of the Union address, about how Barack...
China’s President Hu Jintao is visiting the United States this week. This means we can count on two things: 1) a proliferation of Hu/who jokes (think: Abbott and Costello, “Who’s on first?â€Â); and 2) disputes about the respective monetary policies of the two countries. Chinese officials gripe about the Federal Reserve’s cheap-dollar policy. American...
December 15 is Bill of Rights Day. This year is the 219th anniversary of the adoption of the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitutionâ€â€the Bill of Rights. Few Americans notice Bill of Rights Day. That isn’t surprising, since we have done such a poor job of upholding and abiding by its provisions....
Tragically, the Fed appears to have learned little from its mistakes. Its current policy of “quantitative easing†continues its long tradition of creating bubbles by deliberately implementing inflationary policies.
Every fall in my Econ 101 course, during the last class period before we part for Thanksgiving, I share a lesson from early American history. It is particularly timely, because it deals with those we credit with the first American Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony. Upon arriving in New England, the Pilgrims shared...
George W. Bush was our best pro-life president, hands down.
The U.S. economy is a dead man walkingâ€â€a zombie on life support. If we don’t bite the proverbial bullet and go through a painful cleansing, a healing period of deflation, the ultimate price we pay will be even worse.
We Americans tend to look forward to the various holidays on the calendar. Sometimes we pause to ponder the meaning of these commemorative days; often we do not. Perhaps in your own experience you can recall a Thanksgiving, an Easter, or an Independence Day when something happened that brought home to you the true...
Now that the elections are over, attention is turning to the economy.  The stock market rose steadily from the end of August up to the elections. Since the stock market tends to be forward-looking, its recent strong and steady rise suggests that investors have been optimistic. In my opinion, two factors have generated...
If lenders can no longer foreclose on properties, how many millions of other mortgage-holders will decide to stop making their monthly payments?
This week, the dynamite documentary, “I Want Your Money,†opens at theaters nationwide. The release of this film so close to the midterm elections on November 2 is no coincidence. “IWYM†is a cry of the heart from its makers; in fact, it wears its heart on its sleeve from start to finish. The...
At best, though, the “Pledge to America†is a mixed bag. Clearly, its Republican authors sought to chart a middle path between Democrats and the Tea Party movement. In that, they succeeded.
Like a banana republic, we have allowed a self-serving political class to spend tax dollars and borrowed funds to “buy†popularity and take us to the brink of national bankruptcy.
It is hard to find anything positive to say about the corporate income (i.e., profits) tax. Economists across the ideological spectrum agree that the corporate profits tax is woefully inefficient:1) It warps corporate decision making, inducing expenditures made only to reduce a company’s tax liability. 2) The compliance costs are astronomical, often exceeding 60...
I’m now convinced that the Obama administration is placing its political agenda above policies that would contribute to the economic recovery that millions of Americans so desperately need. That agenda includes bringing more economic activity under government control, making more people dependent on government, and, generally, redistributing wealth.I have come to this conclusion after...
The grand lesson of the 20th century is that Big Government retards economic progress.The evidence of this lesson goes beyond the socialist countries and their dramatic economic failures. Several decades ago, as a young economist, I encountered repeated studies that showed a high correlation between two macroeconomic phenomena: The larger the government’s share of...
Recently, Bill O’Reilly interviewed John Stossel about the dangerous situation along Arizona’s porous border with Mexico. Stossel is probably my favorite reporter. I admire the way he demolishes popular myths, particularly economic myths. However, on the topic of how to deal with waves of illegals (some of them perpetrators of violent crime) in Arizona,...
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