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 wearing Keynesian blinders, but the truth is far more depressing. It would…
Daily Analysis
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 and jokes do a very good job of helping people understand economics. I’ve always liked this cartoon, for instance, because…
Richard Vedder on the Failings of Higher Education
Other than my affection for the Georgia Bulldogs, I’m not a big fan of higher education. Colleges and universities are hotbeds of political correctness, but that’s actually a minor issue. The big problem is that higher education consumes a huge amount of resources and…
Should the United Nations Have the Power to Impose Global Taxes?
What’s the worst policy idea that would cause the most damage to society? I’m tempted to say the value-added tax since our hopes of restraining the federal government will be greatly undermined if we give the buffoons in Washington a new source of revenue. Indeed,…
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 the unemployment rate today would be about 2-percentage points lower if the…
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 weak compared to the boom of the early 1980s. But perhaps that was an unfair…
Don Boudreaux Debunks Robert Reich
I’ve debated Robert Reich on issues such as tax havens, class warfare, and oil companies. Those interactions apparently aren’t enough, though, since several people have asked me to debunk this Reich video. But I had no desire to address Reich’s demagoguery, in part…
Debating at U.S. News & World Report, I Explain Double Taxation to the Economic Heathens
Never let it be said I back down from a fight, even when it’s the other team’s game, played by the other team’s rules, and for the benefit of the wrong person. And that definitely went through my mind when U.S. News & World Report asked me to contribute to their…
New Congressional Budget Office Numbers Once Again Show that Modest Spending Restraint Would Eliminate Red Ink
Back in 2010, I crunched the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office and reported that the budget could be balanced in just 10 years if politicians exercised a modicum of fiscal discipline and limited annual spending increases to about 2 percent yearly. When CBO…
Lasting Economies Are Not Built
During his State of the Union speech, President Obama expressed his desire for an “economy built to last,” an oxymoron emblematic of the President’s embrace of Keynesianism and other failed economic philosophies. Simply put, strong economies are not…