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Why Won’t Washington Understand that Paying People to Be Unemployed Means More Unemployment?

Why Won’t Washington Understand that Paying People to Be Unemployed Means More Unemployment?

I’ve written periodically about the perverse incentives of the unemployment insurance system. Simply stated, there will be fewer jobs if the government subsidizes joblessness, and I even showed that this… Read more »

A Lesson for Krugman, et al, about Canada’s Real Fiscal Restraint vs. the United Kingdom’s Faux Austerity

A Lesson for Krugman, et al, about Canada’s Real Fiscal Restraint vs. the United Kingdom’s Faux Austerity

Demonstrating that he’s probably not a fan of Mitchell’s Golden Rule, Paul Krugman recently asserted that fiscal austerity has failed in the United Kingdom. Citing Keynesian theory and weak economics… Read more »

Sex and the Power of Economics

Sex and the Power of Economics

Even though there is a wealth of evidence for the Laffer Curve, statists and other big-government advocates routinely claim that incentives don’t matter. So I wonder how they’ll react to… Read more »

How Can Obama Look at these Two Charts and Conclude that America Should Have Higher Double Taxation of Dividends and Capital Gains?

How Can Obama Look at these Two Charts and Conclude that America Should Have Higher Double Taxation of Dividends and Capital Gains?

As discussed yesterday, the most important number in Obama’s budget is that the burden of government spending will be at least $2 trillion higher in 10 years if the President’s… Read more »

Data in New World Bank Report Shows that Large Public Sectors Reduce Economic Growth

Data in New World Bank Report Shows that Large Public Sectors Reduce Economic Growth

When Ronald Reagan said that big government undermined the economy, some people dismissed his comments because of his philosophical belief in liberty. And when I discuss my work on the… Read more »

Acting as the Typhoid Mary of the Global Economy, the OECD Urges Higher Taxes in Latin America

Acting as the Typhoid Mary of the Global Economy, the OECD Urges Higher Taxes in Latin America

Is it April Fool’s Day? Has somebody in Paris hacked the website at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development? Have we been transported to a parallel dimension where up… Read more »

DC’s Unjustified Optimism

DC’s Unjustified Optimism

According to Gallup, D.C. has the highest amount of economic confidence in the country…and it’s not even close. It would be easy to say that Gallup over-sampled White House staffers… Read more »

Classic Cartoon on So-Called Stimulus Is Amusing and Economically Accurate

Classic Cartoon on So-Called Stimulus Is Amusing and Economically Accurate

People often ask why I put so much political humor on this site. The easy answer is that I like a good joke. But I also find that some cartoons… Read more »

In a Victory for Gridlock, the Unemployment Rate Has Dropped 1.5-Percentage Points Since Republicans Took Control of the House

In a Victory for Gridlock, the Unemployment Rate Has Dropped 1.5-Percentage Points Since Republicans Took Control of the House

The new unemployment numbers show a joblessness rate of 8.3 percent. From a political perspective, this is good news for the White House. Even though the Obama Administration projected that… Read more »

One Year Later, Another Look at Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics

One Year Later, Another Look at Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics

On this day last year, I posted two charts that I developed using the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank’s interactive website. Those two charts showed that the current recovery was very… Read more »