Economy
As Obama, Pelosi and Reid accelerate the implementation of socialistic practices in America – building on what Bush started – it is helpful and necessary to reacquaint ourselves with fundamental economic principles and some specific significant issues animating today’s public debate. FUNDAMENTAL ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES The 17-blog post series below was originally put together in 2006…
According to the New York Times, “senior Democratic lawmakers” are opposed to the Republican proposal to create a long-term stimulus by lowering mortgage rates…[Senator Mitch McConnell] has proposed that the federal government subsidize mortgages with a fixed interest rate of 4 percent to 4.5 percent. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-controlled mortgage-finance companies,…
As I mentioned last week, the WSJ wrote an editorial about the ever-growing “economic stimulus” package. As they put it then: This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years….this bill was written based on the wish list of every living —…
If there is going to be a major binge of stimulus spending in one form or another, and since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already been taken over by the government anyway, doesn’t this stimulus proposal being put forth by Senate Republicans make a lot of sense, because it brings regular folks who have…
Disappointingly, URI economics professor Len Lardaro sums up the zeitgeist of the times: “These may not be stimulus funds in the strict sense,” Lardaro said, but they convey the sense that government is attacking the crisis head on. Bryant’s Edinaldo Tebaldi displays another symptom of the intellectual virus currently infecting economics academia: To Tebaldi, the…
John Kostrzewa’s article on the failure of the 401(k) in this past Sunday’s ProJo (which didn’t go immediately on line, for some reason) hit home for many, I’m sure. He focuses on the fact that the 401(k) “system” requires rank amateurs to make relatively un-educated investment decisions. He has a point, but it’s not just…
Ben Stein (h/t) boils the “porkulus” package down: I love this. The new kind of politics of hope. Eight hours of debate in the HR to pass a bill spending $820 billion, or roughly $102 billion per hour of debate. Only ten per cent of the “stimulus” to be spent on 2009. Close to half…
Another excerpt from that excellent WSJ article cited by Marc: … by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren’t likely to help the economy immediately. One of the…
WSJ: “Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The 647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being…
Setting aside the fact that he apparently didn’t get Martin Luther King Jr.’s memo, can former Labor Secretary Robert Reich please clarify several confusing aspects of his remarks a couple of weeks ago in front of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee? Outlining what he believes should be the focus of President Obama’s economic…
