Economy
December 28, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Ezra Klein is a self-styled “wonk blogger” for the Washington Post. His work does, indeed, have a wonkish quality. But if you strip that veneer away, he’s just another liberal columnist who writes intellectually dishonest pieces intended to show that Republicans are intellectually dishonest. In other words, E.J. Dionne with a calculator or Dana Milbank with a smaller smirk. Consider the recent column in which Klein argues that conservatives aren’t
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December 23, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Most people think that Barack Obama is winning his argument with John Boehner. That is probably true, since Boehner has barely engaged in public debate, preferring to pursue the fool’s game of secret negotiations. The same thing is happening around the world, as demagogic politicians lie to voters, assuring them that the status quo is sustainable. Just vote for more government, and the money will magically appear. Somehow. American voters
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December 21, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The Commerce Department has upwardly revised third-quarter real GDP to 3.1 percent. Previously, third-quarter growth was reported as 2.7 percent. With this revision, the third quarter of 2012 becomes the strongest quarter of the year and the third strongest since the economy began picking up in the summer of 2009. As James Pethokoukis suggests, the increasing strength of the economy during this summer likely played a significant role in President
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December 17, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Over the weekend Paul Mirengoff spotlighted the views of two well-informed commentators on the Fed’s long-running experiment in epic monetary easing, now in its fourth iteration. Paul is admirably open-minded, while admittedly suspicious, of the program. I frankly hate it. It robs savers of the value of their savings. It viciously complicates retirement planning and life for those in retirement. If a Republican were president, we’d be hearing about it
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December 16, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Via InstaPundit, we learn that for the first time, the United States does not rank as one of the world’s ten most prosperous nations, as rated by London’s Legatum Institute. The authors of the report found that the U.S.’s slippage is being driven by “a decline in the number of US citizens who believe that hard work will get them ahead.” Well, they’re right: in Barack Obama’s America, hard work
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December 15, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
What should we make of Ben Bernanke’s historic decision to link interest rates to an unemployment target? I take a negative view, but that’s just a reaction, not an analysis. Let’s turn the floor over to two experts, James Pethokoukis, who favors the move, and King Banaian, who doesn’t. First, Pethokoukis: Let’s look at the economy right now and identity what its biggest problems are. GDP growth will likely come
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December 13, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Small business owners are more pessimistic than at almost any time in modern history following last month’s election, according to the National Federation of Independent Business: The most significant factor impacting the decline in optimism is the expectation that future business conditions will be worse than current ones. The net percent of owners expecting better business conditions in six months fell 37 points to a net negative 35 percent. In
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December 12, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
President Obama’s goal in the fiscal cliff negotiations seems clear. He wants to force the Republicans to swallow increases in the tax rates of high-earners and thereby bring in at least one trillion dollars in revenue. Alternatively, if the Republicans won’t swallow rate increases for the “wealthy,” he wants to see everyone’s taxes go up and be able to blame Republicans for it. The Republican goal also seems clear. They
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December 8, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
President Obama said in his radio address today that going over the so-called financial cliff “would be bad for families, it would be bad for businesses, and it would drag down our entire economy.” “Bad all around,” as Sam Spade would say. Most people understand this. The question is, how far will Obama go to avoid “the cliff.” On this question, Obama said that he will not sign a package
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December 7, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Superficially, the November jobs report doesn’t look bad. Non-farm jubs increased by almost 150,000 and the unemployment rate dropped to a four year low of 7.7 percent. Viewed with a little more sophistication, the report looks worse. 150,000 new jobs isn’t very impressive. And the drop in the unemployment rate stems from the large number of Americans who stopped looking for work. In fact, the deeper one drills down, the
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December 7, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Ronald Coase, the University of Chicago economist, Nobel Prize winner, and originator of the widely used and misused “Coase Theorem” (about the dynamics of property rights) is still going at the ripe young age of 102. I believe his famous essay, “The Problem of Social Cost,” remains the most-cited law review article in history, and it spawned the influential law and economics movement inside the legal academy. Writing recently in the Harvard
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December 7, 2012 — Steven Hayward
That’s the title of a fine column from John Agresto that appeared in the Washington Examiner on Wednesday, making a more succinct case for the same point I’ve tried to make in my two previous posts on why Republicans are losing the tax debate, here and here. While I focused on the lack of an argument about justice for fairness, Agresto takes dead aim at the view that might be
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December 4, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Each of the following 20 propositions are, I think, true: 1. Either there will be a deal between President Obama and the Republicans or there will be no deal and we will go over the “fiscal cliff.” This choice can be postponed until next year, but it probably can’t be avoided altogether. 2. In all likelihood, Obama won’t agree to a deal unless the tax rates of very top earners
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November 29, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Tim Geithner presented John Boehner with the Obama plan for averting the “fiscal cliff.” According to the New York Times, Obama’s plan calls for $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, $50 billion in immediate stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing, and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits. President Obama would also agree to a goal of finding $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other
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November 28, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
We’ve written, as has virtually every other commentator, about the “fiscal cliff.” But the term is probably a misnomer. It refers to the fact that, absent a budget deficit deal, taxes will rise on everyone who pays them and federal spending will be cut. The combined effect would be a small but discernible change in fiscal policy that might well slow the economy down or, given how slow the economy
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November 27, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
James Capretta offers four guidelines for navigating fiscal cliff negotiations. On the whole, I think they are sensible suggestions and, at a minimum, worthy of consideration. First, “acknowledge the economic and policy risks of going over the cliff.” It’s possible that the looming tax increases and spending cuts wouldn’t send the U.S. economy into a recession. It’s also possible that massive cuts to the military budget wooudn’t produce adverse consequences
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November 25, 2012 — Steven Hayward
The current issue of The New Republic has a long attack on Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and free market economics generally by the Nobel laureate economist Robert Solow, entitled “Hayek, Friedman, and the Illusions of Conservative Economics.” Ostensibly a review of the brand new book The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets Since the Great Depression by Angus Burgin, the review is less about the book than it is an excuse
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