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...
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Two earth-shattering catastrophes shaped the last ten years. The first 911, the staged terror event that provided the self-justification to wage an endless war against phantom enemies and the second a financial meltdown of the debt ridden international banking system. This has been a frightful decade for America. Instead of looking at a straight...
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It could be Bill Clinton (1994) all over again. Barack Obama’s move should not only help the economy dramatically, and spare taxpayers more ludicrous levels of obscene taxation to bail out a profligate federal government, but, in the end, it could save his presidency.
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Prolonged uncertainty will continue to limit hiring and minimize commitment to long-term capital expenditures. Only a very few large corporations with plans already on the books to expand capacity will take advantage of this temporarily accelerated tax break. This plan enables an acceleration of depreciation allowances which businesses would deduct over time, as such...
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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...
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I am making a statement less on economic theory, than I am making an observation on the message our intuitive natures are very likely receiving, many of us at least - the Obama and Krugman recipe for a utopian Now is false. It is false for the Now, and it is false for the...
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Tactical Animals People tend to be tactical, not strategic, animals: they’d rather fight fires than prevent them. Procrastination and denial are their extinguishers of choice, at home and the workplace. BP’s foreseen disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, ruining lives like a predictable divorce, is but the latest example. People delay divorce for years,...
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American-born auteur filmmaker, playwright, and philosopher Woody Allen is at the Cannes Film Festival this week, promoting his new film and offering up a variety of opinions ranging from criminology to political theory. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, for example, Allen showered U.S. President Barack Obama with effusive praise, calling him “brilliant” and “cool.”...
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Surprising documents made available to this author reveal that Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi has a huge financial stake in companies likely to profit from the Obama administration’s “green†policies. Zoi, who left her position as CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection  founded by Al Gore  to serve as assistant...
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Political correctness and economic forces will prevent discussion on the root cause of stress on the earth’s oceans, air, forests, rivers, and lakes. No one in Copenhagen will breathe a word about the world’s population.
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Would you have remained in Washington, and while giving a speech, mentioned the killings in a “by the way," addendum? Perhaps not.
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Through a century of market ups and downs, interest rate fluctuations, mergers, acquisitions, political influence, lobbying and positioning insiders to the most powerful government and government related institutions, the Kings of Wall Street have nurtured and advanced their isolated power to a point where they are responsible to no one.
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To initiate an advance on the lengthy economic turnaround, the joy ride of debt-spending-with-wanton-abandon mindset enjoyed by Bush and continued by Obama must be brought to a close. Deficit growth cannot continue on a path exceeding the rate of economic growth. The Administration should surface out of its decision closet, and become resolutely emphatic...
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With that level of insight you can now go out and make major decisions for your own future, such as, whether or not to buy a house, upgrade your car, perhaps even fly to Europe on the wings of hope. No?
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Regarding this nastiness of the past week, please do not be too concerned about all this talk surrounding our super high-speed fully automated transaction processors. Also please understand that they are our future. Admittedly, we are enamored with the technological prowess we have acquired. Don’t believe those jealous rumors coming from begrudging low-level corners...
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Not that America wants a king, because it doesn’t, but there is evidently a vast portion of society that yearns for a personality that it believes will transcend it to a place that Camelots are made of. America doesn’t want to literally revisit the anachronism of royalty, yet the British monarchy is as popular...
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Wall Street is quietly cheering and encouraging the moves of a neophyte CEO. You would too, if you controlled the game.?
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When businesses complain of the paperwork mountain required along with endless strings attached, someone should realize that the Obama free money has been rendered too onerous to be accepted.??
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Obama, a little more than a hundred days in office, is making the object of his blame look like a miser.??
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The White House accusing the holdouts of acting against the national interest, is injecting the government directly into the management and decision making process governing the funds. This is a pretense that the activity of bankruptcy is somehow unnatural and un-American. ??
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