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Why iTunes Works
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2013 CommentApple did not attain the largest market cap in the world by selling legal downloads for 99 cents each. Steve Jobs' genius lay in his ability to capture the dollars consumers enjoyed spending on feelings associated with music and creativity – dollars they no longer had to shell out for CDs.
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Inspector General Report Finds Taxpayers Shortchanged by Coal
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2013 CommentLast week, a newly-released government report revealed widespread dysfunction and special dealing in the energy market. The study, completed by the Inspector General's Office, examined how the Bureau of Land Management negotiates leases of federal lands containing coal deposits. This study plus earlier investigations found that the Bureau fails to collect the fair market value of the coal extracted. We, the taxpayers, own these public lands and the coal on them. We are being shortchanged.
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Farm Bill Unlikely to Cut Subsidies for Wealthiest Farmers and Agribusiness
Tweet Share on Facebook June 17, 2013 CommentThe 2013 Farm Bill presents a real opportunity for substantive changes in U.S. agricultural policy. But instead of reform, both the House and Senate agricultural committees are offering classic bait-and-switch proposals to protect farm subsidies – more than 80 percent of which flow to households much wealthier than the average American family.
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The Great Recession, a Housing Bubble and Bad Credit
Tweet Share on Facebook June 14, 2013 CommentWe did not have a housing bubble, according to Charles Laven, President of Forsyth Street Advisors. We had a credit bubble. Five years after the Great Recession, we have gained some perspective on what happened. What can we do to make sure it does not happen again?
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A New WPA to Create Government Jobs and Lower Unemployment
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2013 CommentWhile the Great Recession has been officially over for four years, the jobs crisis goes on and on. Unemployment hit its peak of 10.0 percent in October 2009, but remains as high as 7.6 percent in May 2013. Long-term unemployment has been a special scourge, reaching almost twice its previous postwar peak (from 1983), as shown by data from the St. Louis Fed:
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How to Get a Job in a Changing Global Economy
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2013 CommentFor many of us, the traditional career is dead. Instead of simply getting a job, those of us who are ambitious for advancement are faced with creating our own opportunities. Even in previously safe fields and industries, the pace of innovation and the spread of global competition have encroached upon previously well-paved career paths.
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GOP Debt Ceiling Hostages and Denmark’s Good Idea
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2013 CommentChad Stone is chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Debt-ceiling silly season has returned. The Treasury reached the current legal limit on its borrowing authority last month and has "begun employing its well-established toolbox of so-called extraordinary measures to allow continued borrowing for a limited time," as this new report from the Congressional Budget Office outlines. Those measures will postpone the next dangerous political showdown on raising the debt ceiling only until late fall. This is all so unnecessary.
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Disinterest Cancels Kinder Morgan Pipeline from Texas to California
Tweet Share on Facebook June 12, 2013 CommentKinder Morgan Energy Partners is in the news a lot lately. The Houston-based company is one of the leading pipeline and energy storage companies in the U.S. It reportedly has a combined enterprise value of about $115 billion and owns an interest in or operates approximately 80,000 miles of pipelines and 180 terminals. Understandably, many analysts follow it closely. They're curious to see where this company is going, both figuratively and literally.
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Wall Street Tries to Open Loopholes in Derivatives Regulation
Tweet Share on Facebook June 12, 2013 CommentThis week marks an important step forward in the implementation of financial reform. On Monday, the U.S. became the first country in the world to require mandatory clearing of many derivatives contracts, a crucial protection in these previously unregulated markets.
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Should Portugal Abandon the Euro for the Escudo?
Tweet Share on Facebook June 10, 2013 CommentNita Ghei is policy research editor at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
A major motivation for the rivers of funds poured into the Greek bailouts was a grim determination to preserve the single currency within the European Union. As Greece remains mired in recession, the benefits of the outpouring of debt remain questionable at best. Now, Portugal is challenging the value of remaining a member of the eurozone, with an economics tract perching on its bestseller lists. Joao Ferreira do Amaral, a professor at Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, has sparked a much overdue debate in that crisis-wracked nation about the purported benefits of keeping the euro in his book "Why We Should Leave the Euro."
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