Category — economy

Will someone please tell the president the campaign is over? He is back out on the hustings reading from the old class warfare script. He preens. He fabricates successes where there are none. He makes promises he has no intention of keeping.   Read the rest of this entry »

We drove nearly 3,000 kilometers and had a couple of mechanical problems in the middle of nowhere. Roadside eateries, detours to out-of-the-way places, and getting the rental car fixed provided plenty of opportunity to interact with people outside of tourist locations. What we saw were two Spains. The first was vibrant, wealthy, and dismissive of the nation’s economic woes. The second Spain was lethargic, scraping by, and dismissive of the nation’s economic woes.   Read the rest of this entry »

Klavan has clearly read Bastiat.   Read the rest of this entry »

Even Obama partisans know that for many Americans “hope and change” translate into disappointment and despair. No amount of convention rhetoric, appeals to emotion or Clinton spin can conjure up a positive response to the question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”   Read the rest of this entry »

In a few days, I’m going on an extended trip to Turkey and Spain. Since I’ll be out of reach, I thought it might be an opportune time to make some people angry. Those people would be my fellow baby boomers who I believe share some of the responsibility for the bankrupt Social Security and Medicare systems.   Read the rest of this entry »

When I was an economics major in college, I was taught that Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism using Keynesian principles. The unchallenged assertion was that the sole reason the Great Depression lasted a decade was because New Dealers were too timid in spending borrowed money. In many economists minds, skyrocket spending to win World War II proved conclusively that huge deficits were the cure for slow growth. To a large extent, this is a rewriting of history. It didn’t happen this way.   Read the rest of this entry »

Benjamin Franklin ran away from Boston when he was seventeen years old. When he arrived in Philadelphia, he spent his last few pennies on bread. He may have started poor with no family support, but Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther include him in The Wealthy 100: From Benjamin Franklin to Bill Gates—A Ranking of the Richest Americans, Past and Present.   Read the rest of this entry »

In Golden Valley, Minnesota, Obama recently repeated his refrain that, "We are still fighting our way back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression." Except this excuse is nonsense—the more severe the downturn, the more robust the recovery. Obama should have the wind at his back. Rapid recovery has been true throughout our history except under the first two terms of Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt followed the same policies of bashing business, raising taxes, restricting trade, and trying to goose the economy up pouring borrowed money into the public sector. It didn’t work then and it is not working now.   Read the rest of this entry »

The 2010 elections were a rout for progressives. Republicans captured an additional 63 seats in the House of Representatives to win the majority, the largest midterm seat change since 1938. Republicans gained 6 seats in the Senate, but not enough for gain outright control. Republicans also won a record 680 additional seats in state legislatures. Five states saw both chambers switch from Democrat to Republican majorities. In four additional states, Republicans flipped one of the chambers to give them control of both chambers. In three states they increased their control of both houses, and in four states they picked up one chamber to split control of the state legislature. Republicans saw a net increase of six governorships to gain a national majority. It seems everyone got the memo except California.   Read the rest of this entry »

Now that we know Obama’s definition of “fine,” let’s look at some other things that must be fine, too.   Read the rest of this entry »