Economy
From TaxProfBlog, with H/T to Instapundit: Hundreds of economists (including Nobel Prize winners Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott, and Vernon Smith) have signed letters opposing Barack Obama’s economic and tax plans (here, here, and here): We are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor income and investment. His…
John’s comment to my “Not a Trick Question, but Close” post is well worth a read: Let me use a real life, real RI example to rebut your argument. Let’s assume that your theoretical factory owner in fact owned a jewelry factory. Now let’s look at what happened to his economics over the past decade.…
Yeah, I gotta vote “no” on this one: Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials. Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the…
Even beyond the implicit suggestion that a change of the credit score system ought to be imposed, it’s very clear from the following that Matt Jerzyk and Co. see the world very differently than I do at the basic level of the brain’s first impressions: Shouldn’t there be some kind of financial reward for those…
Does Froma Harrop even try to understand the other side? A couple of columns ago, she laid the entire economic crisis at the feet of Phil Gramm, and now, she dismisses a contrary explanation by reducing it to one component: ACCOMPLISHED GOOGLERS can probably find the original talking points off which dozens of conservatives have…
Once again, Don Boudreaux, a George Mason University economics professor, cuts to the chase: …[the] explanation of the current financial turmoil — as being caused by “greed” — is inadequate…Saying that “greed” caused today’s problems is like saying that gravity caused the death of someone pushed from the top floor of the Empire State building.…
Why McCain Goes Easy on Fannie and the CRA. How McCain could respond. More on how McCain could respond. An ad. More historical particulars here and here. ADDENDUM And now this news about Barney Frank’s conflict of interest.
In addition to the links found here, Russell Roberts of Cafe Hayek offers one of the clearest explanations of the current financial mess in How Government Stoked the Mania: Housing prices would never have risen so high without multiple Washington mistakes – Many believe that wild greed and market failure led us into this sorry…
A ton of pork, referred to as “sweeteners” – i.e., sweetening the deal so as to obtain the commitment of an individual senator to the bill – made it into the bailout bill passed by the Senate last night. If this is indeed the major financial crisis represented by some of our elected officials, why…
Confused by all the posturing by Republican and Democratic politicians regarding the current financial problems? Well, that is no surprise is it? Politicians typically know little-to-nothing about economics, rarely grasp how incentives drive human behavior, and usually don’t pay attention to the consequences, intended or otherwise, of their actions. To assist in peeling away the…
