The Market Needs Dynamic Regulation
There is a lot of debate about the role of regulation in the market. Free market critics say that deregulation was a core cause of the economic crisis. Leftist hawk Arianna Huffington wants to laugh...
View ArticleEconomics Actually
Romance novels and the dismal science don’t normally go together, but the George Mason University economist Russ Roberts has gone a long way toward reconciling the two. His previous novels, The Choice:...
View ArticleBill Dunkelberg's Notes on the Economy
Bill Dunkelberg is a professor of economics at Temple University, and writes a series of commentaries on the economy for the Wynnewood Institute that are well worth a read. His most recent article has...
View ArticleWhy 2009 Will be Worse than 2008
Whew. Now that 2008 is in the history books, $8.5 trillion in federal bailout money is in the pipeline, and bold leadership is set to take command, Americans can all breathe a little easier, right?Uh,...
View ArticleDemocratic governors call for $1 trillion stimulus
Four Democratic governors held a news conference to stump for a $1 trillion dollar "stimulus" package. Really, this is a state bailout, since virtually all the money they want is going to pay for...
View ArticleProposed Stimulus: Obama Tax "Cuts" are Bull-ogna
Its Monday, January 5, 2009. The start of the new year. Let the Washington Games begin! A Washington Post report this morning gives one of the first glimpses of whats coming from the Obama...
View ArticleState Asset Inventories, Divestiture are Key Reform Tools
Reason friend and colleague John Palatiello has an excellent article today in the newly-relaunched Bacon's Rebellion advancing a innovative proposal to use asset divestiture to fund augment...
View ArticleEngland to abandon urban growth boundaries?
In what may be one of the most significant moves in recent memory for urban planning, England's PM Gordon Brown seems on the verge of abandoning the urban containment policies that have been a...
View ArticleFunding System for Roads and Bridges Is Broken
In the midst of a recession and with well over $700 billion in bailouts already splashed around, there is talk of increasing the federal gas tax. Why? Federal transportation spending is exceeding...
View ArticlePrivate sector brings infrastructure projects in on time and under budget
It's more than a bit odd that Congress is debating the efficacy of private sector participation in providing infrastructure in the U.S. Congressmen, apparently, are reluctant to expand critical...
View ArticleSchwarzenegger's Failure
You can’t really argue with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political success. In 2002 the California Republican Party, still suffering from the anti-immigrant fervor cooked up by former Gov. Pete Wilson,...
View ArticleStimulus or Pork? 6,371 Earmarks in Last Transportation Bill
In a new column, Reason Foundation's Sam Staley and Adrian Moore write: States receive most transportation funding from the federal government based on a complex formula. The money isn't given to...
View ArticleNo Expresso Machine Left Behind
Headlines that say it all... VIa today's Chicago Tribune: Chicago schools' espresso machines a waste of money, inspector reports District overpaid; many go unused Or another compelling argument for...
View ArticleSouth Korea Gets It
While most economies are trying to spend their way to daylight, one country gets it: South Korea. Tax-News.com reports that South Korea will cut income taxes, corporation taxes, and increase capital...
View ArticleMaking Sure Infrastructure Stimulus Isn't Pork Parade
President-elect Barack Obama's transition team is days away from releasing the details of an economic stimulus plan. If, as expected, more than $200 billion is directed toward transportation...
View ArticlePractical Reasons Why Stimulus Spending Doesn't Work
The goal of any stimulus package has two objectives it must meet in order to qualify as successful:Generate quick economic recovery that leads toSustained economic growth. Contrary to popular belief,...
View ArticleChange the Bankruptcy Laws
Carl Icahn, chairman of the diversified Icahn Enterprises, put forth an interesting idea in a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, recommending a change in bankruptcy law to help encourage private equity...
View ArticleAlien World
It’s a little before 10 p.m. when I climb into the back of a pick-up truck full of crouching young Mexicans. We’re in the lush Mezquital Valley just outside Ixmiquilpan, a dusty strip town cramped with...
View ArticleGovernment will create how many jobs?
Ever wonder where the numbers purporting to show the government will create jobs come from? Ron Utt at the Heritage Foundation has an excellent and accessible report (Backgrounder No. 2121) breaking...
View ArticleThe Empty Case for More Regulation
If there is anything we have learned from the crisis in the financial sector, it's the urgent need for more regulation. Had federal regulators been more vigilant or wielded greater powers, all this...
View ArticleBasic Reasons Why Stimulus Fails
The goal of any stimulus package has two objectives it must meet in order to qualify as successful: 1) Generate quick economic recovery that leads to, 2) Sustained economic growth. Without achieving...
View ArticleIs government spending too easy of a solution?
Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, former member of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors and noted author of a popular introductory economics textbook, has a great article in the New York Times...
View ArticleThe Next Catastrophe
Funds worth trillions of dollars start to plummet in value. Political pressure to be “socially responsible” distorts the market decisions of government-related enterprises, leading to risky...
View ArticleState governments confident taxpayers will bail them out
Front page of today's USA Today, an article that really made my stomach churn. Seems most states are responding to the recession and falling revenues by, yes, continuing to spend at higher levels. Ya...
View ArticleNo Biofuels Bailout
Reason.com Clean Renewable Energy Bonds ("CREBs")Everyone wants a bailout. Last week, a coalition of mostly farm energy lobbyists sent a letter to the Congressional Democratic leadership begging for...
View ArticleJulius Genachowski: Another Tabula Rasa?
It's rare to see such agreement between free-market groups such as the Progress & Freedom Foundation and left-leaning Free Press, but Barack Obama's nomination of Julius Genachowski to chair the...
View ArticleNew Tax Cut Proposals on Capitol Hill
All talk on the Hill is about tax cuts, tax credits, and tax incentives these days. With the fact that massive spending is deemed a foregone conclusion by Democrats and many Republicans, recent...
View ArticleAn Education Fantasy Come True
I'm sure members of the education BLOB are pinching themselves right now. Somewhere Randi Weingarten and Dennis Van Roekel are rolling around on a hotel bed covered in money. Get ready for the largest...
View ArticleMy daughter's take on the economy
My 9 year old daughter had been learning economics and aspires to be a policy wonk. Her take on the "stimulus" and the economy may apeal to some paleo-cons. . . The Importance of Bartering in the Pile...
View ArticleTime to reform, fully privatize Fannie and Freddie
The Winter 2008-09 issue of Regulation magazine has an article by University of California at Berkeley finance professor Dwight Jaffee arguing for the full privatization of recently nationalized...
View ArticleStimulus Has No "Earmarks"?
The proposed stimulus plan from Democrats yesterday is $825 billion will about a $100 bill less in tax cuts then originally thought. The GOP is claiming it wasn't consulted and is "nothing like" the...
View ArticleRecovery.gov
As promised, the new stimulus bill offers a website to provide transparency for the new spending. One can only imagine what it might offer. It could be President-elect Obama truly fulfilling a promise...
View ArticleWhere Did Bush Go Wrong?
President Bush recently hit the lowest job approval rating of his term, barely higher than Richard Nixon's during Watergate, and 28 percent of Americans think he's the worst ever. But his poor...
View ArticleFlorida Benefitting from Prison Privatization
Letter to the Editor at the Tallahassee "Perhaps privatized prisons just doesn't work," (Jan. 12) gets it wrong. The article naively pretends state-run prisons are utopias free of threats, contraband,...
View ArticleExamining Sprawl in Europe and America
Michael Lewyn's article Sprawl in Europe and America attempts to demonstrate that suburbanization (pejoratively called "sprawl") is not, as Robert Bruegmann suggests, a predictable result of increasing...
View ArticleBongs Away!
A few weeks before Barack Obama was elected president, Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. attorney for western Pennsylvania, filed criminal charges against the makers of the Whizzinator, a fake penis used to...
View ArticleHealth Care Reform Follies
HAWAII just had a vivid les son in health-care eco nomics, learning that if you offer people insurance for free - surprise, surprise - they'll quickly drop other coverage to enroll. That's the opener...
View ArticleThe Five Core Principles President Obama Should Follow
There is no shortage of issues that President Barack Obama could take on as his top priority.He could launch a public-private partnership infrastructure program that rebuilds the country's roads,...
View ArticleObama Needs to Push for Online Stimulus Transparency
House Democrats have put forth an $825 billion stimulus package in an ambitious plan aimed at stimulating the economy. But before spending any more money, Congress and newly inaugurated President...
View ArticleGlitz meets mud at the White House
In every presidential campaign, I wonder how the lofty goals and ideals of the candidates will actually fare in the real world of governing. A glimpse of this became glaringly apparent during the...
View ArticleBut Who Will Drive Them? (and who will run the junk yards?)
In a New York Times Editorial, the editors said: But a big obstacle remains to the greening of American drivers: the price tag. With gas prices likely to remain low as consumers grapple with...
View ArticleGOP Presents New "Stimulus" Ideas
President Obama has said he would take good ideas from anywhere, and asked Republicans in Congress to offer their input on the proposed stimulus package. House GOP Whip Eric Cantor led a committee to...
View ArticleChina Stimulus Package
An interesting article in the NY Times today about the China Stimulurs pacakage. In an effort to hold back the domestic effects of the global downturn, China is starting to spend hundreds of billions...
View Articlenational poll: tax me more?
That's one interpretation of the findings from a national poll commissioned by the infrastructure lobbying group Buildling America's Future. Frank Luntz, a respected Republican pollster, asked 800...
View ArticleEnvironmental Issues Slide in Poll of Public's Concern
In an article in todays NY Times, the Pew Research Center reports that environmental issues came in last among 20 voter concerns. Most lkely my colleague Skaida Smith-Hesters will have a lot more to...
View ArticleReason Foundation Praises President Obamaâs Transparency Memorandum
Los Angeles (January 22, 2009) – On his first day in office President Barack Obama laid out his principles for transparency in the executive branch, a step towards keeping his campaign promise of...
View ArticleRepeating Our Economic Woes
We all know how we got into this economic mess. We spent too much, borrowed with abandon, and acted like the bills would never come due. So what's the prescription for getting out? Spending more,...
View ArticleThe Drug War's Collateral Damage
At around 6pm on January 27 of last year, 80-year-old Isaac Singletary spotted a couple of drug dealers attempting to do business on his front lawn. It wasn’t the first time. Singletary, described by...
View ArticleDetroit Bets Its Future on Washington
The Wall Street Journal The curtain comes down this week on the 2009 Detroit International Auto Show -- and with it likely on the American auto industry as we know it. This might turn out to be a...
View ArticleBush Was Big Government Disaster
The Wall Street Journal Now that George W. Bush has finally left office, here's a challenge to a nation famous for its proud tradition of invention: Can somebody invent a machine capable of fully...
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