Tag Archives : Economics
Another Month of Data Re-Confirms Obama’s Horrible Record on Jobs
Remember back in 2009, when President Obama and his team told us that we needed to squander $800 billion on a so-called stimulus package. The crowd in Washington was quite confident that Keynesian spending was going to save the day, even though similar efforts had failed for Hoover and Roosevelt in the 1930s, for Japan […]
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Will America Face a Greek-Style Fiscal Crisis?
Since I’ve written several times that the United States will face a fiscal crisis if entitlement programs aren’t reformed, you won’t be surprised to see that I repeat those points in this CNBC debate. But I’m not happy with my performance. Not because my leftist opponent grabbed more air time (mostly because the host started […]
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Debating Keynesian Economics with Robert Reich on CNN
It seems that any argument about the economy eventually boils down to the core issue of whether government spending acts as a stimulus or whether it is – in the words of Thomas Sowell – a sedative that undermines prosperity. So when Robert Reich and I went on Erin Burnett’s CNN show to discuss Obama’s […]
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Contract for Buffalo Teachers Shows the Wrong Way of Cutting Excess Bureaucratic Blubber
Government bureaucrats are significantly overpaid compared to folks in the productive sector of the economy. So you would think I’d support cuts, especially the kind that get rid of excess blubber in the government workforce. But not when it means higher costs for taxpayers, and that’s exactly what’s happening in New York, where Buffalo taxpayers […]
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Based on the Reform Agenda of German Free Market Advocates, Europe Is Doomed
Guido Westerwelle is supposed to be the German version of a libertarian. Currently serving as Foreign Minister, he was the chairman of the supposedly pro-market Free Democratic Party for 10 years and Wikipedia says he was known as a “proponent of an unlimited free market economy.” Sounds like a good guy, right? Just the type […]
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On the Right of Economic Emigration, France Has Better Policy than America
I’ve mocked France on several occasions, and I thought Sarkozy was so bad that I figured (in the long run) the election of Hollande was a step in the right direction. But in certain ways, France isn’t as bad as the United States. The New York Times has a big story about French entrepreneurs and […]
read more...New Study from U.K. Think Tank Shows How Big Government Undermines Prosperity
It seems I was put on the planet to educate people about the negative economic impact of excessive government. Though I must be doing a bad job because the burden of the public sector keeps rising. But hope springs eternal. To help make the case, I’ve cited research from international bureaucracies such as the Organization […]
read more...In the Lake Wobegon Fantasy World, all Investments Make Money
I sometimes wonder whether journalists have the slightest idea of how capitalism works. In recent weeks, we’ve seen breathless reporting on the $2 billion loss at JP Morgan Chase, and now there’s a big kerfuffle about the falling value of Facebook stock. In response to these supposed scandals, there are all sorts of articles being […]
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A Rare Bit of Good News from Europe
It seems that there’s nothing but bad news coming from Europe. Whether we’re talking about fake austerity in the United Kingdom, confiscatory tax schemes in France, or bailouts in Greece, the continent seems to be a case study of failed statism. But that’s not completely accurate. Every so often I highlight good news, such as […]
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Doubling Down on Failure: Former Obama Official Calls for U.S.-Financed Keynesian Spending Binge in Europe
There’s an old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. This certainly is a good description of Keynesians, who relentlessly push more government spending as some sort of magic potion for the economy – notwithstanding a record of failure. The latest example is Larry Summers, the former […]
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