In his Washington Post column discussing a crisis of confidence among economists, Robert Samuelson correctly notes that Keynesians don’t seem to have the right answers. But he concludes that other schools of thought are similarly befuddled by current events. What he writes is not terribly objectionable, but it’s almost as if he thinks the fiscal debate in the […]

A new study from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University examines some of the academic research about the relationship between government spending and economic performance. Reinforcing many of the points I made in my theory and evidence videos, the GMU study finds that big government undermines growth: Although the studies are not all consistent, […]

I was interviewed by CNN about the issues relating to Congressman Barton’s apology to BP. The network only used one of my quotes from the interview, and I was happy to see that I was not taken out of context (always a danger when you are taped in advance). To augment my limited quote from […]

The G-20 gab-fest is in Canada this weekend, but Canadian taxpayers are definitely not winners. In a display of waste that might even embarrass a French politician, the Canadian government somehow is going to squander $1 billion hosting the event. I can’t even conceive of why such an event should even cost $10 million. Maybe […]

John Derbyshire of National Review has an interesting article on bureaucratic harassment of private business. He begins with a personal story of something that happened when he first came to the United States and was working at a food-preparation company: The first federal regulator I ever knew was a fellow named Ernie. …Ernie was a power […]

Barack Obama and Angela Merkel are the two main characters in what is being portrayed as a fight between American “stimulus” and European “austerity” at the G-20 summit meeting in Canada. My immediate instinct is to cheer for the Europeans. After all, “austerity” presumably means cutting back on wasteful government spending. Obama’s definition of “stimulus,” by […]

Regular readers of this blog know that big corporations often are enemies of free markets and individual liberty. So it is hardly suprising to know that the Business Roundtable, a lobby representing CEOs of major companies, supported the wasteful and ineffective stimulus pprogram in 2009 and the bloated new healthcare entitlement in 2010. Big companies, […]

It’s been amusing, in an I-told-you-so fashion, to follow the fiscal crises in Greece, Spain, and other European welfare states. And I feel like a voyeuristic ghoul as I observe the incredibly misguided bailout policies being adopted by the political elites (who are trying to bailout the business elites who made silly loans to corrupt nations […]

This new video from the Institute for Justice celebrates the backlash against the Supreme Court’s reprehensible Kelo decision that allowed politicians to seize private property for the benefit of commercial developers and other campaign contributors. The best part of the video comes shortly before the three-minute mark, when the narrator notes that the corrupt politicians […]