This is the most depressing – but revealing – thing I have read in a long time: “the health-care sector has twice as many clerical workers as nurses and nine times as many as doctors.” That passage is from a very good column by Robert Samuelson, in which he covers a…
Daily Analysis
Government Fiscal Estimates: Always Wrong, Usually Biased
My good friend Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University did a very illuminating interview with Bloomberg about the serial inaccuracy of government fiscal forecasts. Veronique uses health care as an example, giving particular attention to the…
Too Bad Obama Cares More about Kowtowing to Unions rather than Saving Tax Dollars and Improving Quality of Air Travel
I used to have lots of posts about TSA inefficiency and stupidity, but then I got discouraged and stopped. It seemed pointless to discuss the issue when there was no hope for improvement. I still think that’s the case, at least so long as Obama is in the White House…
How Redistribution Creates a Poverty Trap
I’ve beaten up on Newt Gingrich for his views on global warming and his attack on the Ryan budget plan, but I’m completely on his side in the faux controversy about whether it is racist to call Barack Obama the “food stamp president.” This story from ABC News should…
Even World Bank Research Shows Economic Liberty Is Better than Government Dependency
Regular readers know that I’m not a big fan of the international bureaucracies. I don’t like the International Monetary Fund because it encourages bad policy by bailing out nations such as Greece. I don’t like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development…
Crikey, Australia’s a Good Role Model
The Economist magazine has a couple of good articles about Australia’s increasingly enviable economic status. Here’s a blurb from the first article, which outlines the pro-market reforms that enabled today’s prosperity. Only a dozen economies are bigger, and only six…
Ayn Rand Is Spinning in Her Grave: Top Admininstration Lawyer Says It’s Okay to Go Galt!
The line between political truth and literary fiction is getting very blurry. One of the main features of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was the choice of productive people to withdraw their talents from the economy to deprive the statists of a source of loot. Who would…
Unemployment at 9.1 Percent: Heckuva Job on that Stimulus, Mr. President!
Based on this morning’s numbers, I’ve updated my chart showing what the Obama Administration said would happen with the so-called stimulus compared to what actually has happened. As you can see, the unemployment rate is about 2.5 percentage points higher than the…
Limousine Liberals: The Parody Has Become Reality
In the past, I’ve joked about “limousine liberals,” which is a phrase for elitist left wingers who pretend to identify with average people while living the good life. I’ve even mocked these folks on TV. But I always thought the term was symbolic. Not anymore. Here’s a…
Private Digital Money and the Fight Against Oppressive Government
I’m depressed about the global network of tax police being organized by the OECD and high-tax governments. If successful, it will lead to much bigger, more oppressive government. But maybe there’s a way of fighting back. Here’s a video from the folks at Reason TV…