Economy
So that two-trillion-dollar deficit? Turns out it might be the optimistic scenario: The administration insists it isn’t so, but some private economists are wondering if the Obama administration has brought “Rosy Scenario” back to town. In unveiling his budget, President Barack Obama pledged to bring “honesty and fairness” back to the budget process by getting…
Dick Morris is hit or miss, and I can’t say I’m sure which it is with this column: In addressing this panic, the president of the United States must truly be the leader of the world — showing the way back to confidence. Instead, Obama has been instrumental in purveying fear and spreading doubt. It…
From Bloomberg via Drudge: Treasuries fell for a third day as the government sold $22 billion of seven-year notes in the last of three auctions this week as it issues an unprecedented amount of debt to spur the U.S. economy. Secretary of State Clinton’s plea that the Chinese government continue to purchase US paper now…
A rule of thumb for government manipulations of the economy ought to be that regulations be as minimally invasive and starkly drawn as possible. That’s the principle that has kept the following paragraph from a Providence Journal editorial buzzing in the back of my mind since yesterday: Some take-home lessons: A prudent society imposes regulations…
Turning debate into bickering over legislation that would increase departmental budgets by eight percent, Rep. James McGovern (D, MA) offered this irrelevancy: “The same people who drove the economy into the ditch are now complaining about the size of the tow truck,” said Rep. James McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, pointing out the large increase…
Mark Zaccaria concludes his response to Bruce Bartlett’s postulates on the relationship between deficits, monetary policy, interest rates with some specific economic suggestions of his own… Raise Interest Rates: Money is like water, in that if you want it to flow you have to tilt the table. With effective rates at zero there is no…
North Kingstown’s Mark Zaccaria, active small businessman and Republican Party Second District Congressional Candidate in 2008, has taken up the challenge of expounding upon Bruce Bartlett’s basic view of why deficit spending is needed now. Mr. Bartlett has said that…I do not believe that budget deficits are inherently stimulative. However, when we are in a…
Today’s New York Times (h/t Kathryn Jean Lopez) reports that the multi-billion dollar bets that the government has made on several too-big-to-fail institutions don’t look like they are going to pay off — but that the big institutions have a plan that they think can turn things around: just have the government put even more…
Columbia University Business School Professors Christopher Mayer and Glenn Hubbard believe that the best way to arrest the slump in the housing and mortgage industry at the heart of the present financial crisis is to have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (already nationalized by the government) offer low-interest loans that would be accessible by anyone…
Christopher Mayer, Vice-Dean and Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business, has offered the public a detailed critique of President Barack Obama’s mortgage and housing Plan. Professor Mayer explains that the crisis is, in large measure, the result of an incentive structure in the mortgage industry that currently makes modifying the loan agreements for…