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Why Obama's Economic Stimulus Worked
Tweet Share on Facebook June 20, 2012 CommentChad Stone is chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Everyone knows that the stimulus law didn't work, right? Except that it did.
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The Fiscal Consequences of the Supreme Court's Healthcare Ruling
Tweet Share on Facebook June 20, 2012 CommentCharles Blahous is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Jakina Debnam is a Research Analyst at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
The Supreme Court's decision on the 2010 healthcare law may result in what appears to be a fiscal windfall for the federal government. But it would be a grave mistake for lawmakers to react to illusory savings with real new spending.
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Solyndra Not the Only Questionable Obama Loan to 'Green' Energy
Tweet Share on Facebook June 19, 2012 CommentVeronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
The very public failure of energy company Solyndra has focused a lot of attention on the Department of Energy's loan guarantee programs. Beyond Solyndra's failure, it's interesting to take a closer look at these programs. The economic justification for any government-sponsored lending or loan guarantee program must rest on a well established failure of the private sector to allocate loans efficiently, meaning that deserving recipients could not have obtained capital on their own. Absent such a private sector deficiency, the Department of Energy's activities would simply be a wasteful at best, politically motivated at worst, subsidy to this sector of the economy.
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How the FCC Could Boost the Wireless Industry
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2012 CommentMr. Hahn is director of economics at the Smith School, University of Oxford and chief economist at the Legatum Institute. Mr. Passell is a senior fellow at the Milken Institute and the economics editor of the Legatum Institute's Democracy Lab. They are co-founders of Regulation2point0.org, a web portal on regulatory policy.
With the election approaching, it's once again silly season on public policy (it seems to last longer than Major League Baseball these days). Hardly anybody running for office says what he means, or expects anybody to remember what he said after the ballots are counted. And, of course, this dead-end street runs two ways: the chattering classes bearing sensible policy aren't likely to get through to policymakers until the electoral dust settles.
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How Wall Street and Unions Are Destroying the Economy
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2012 CommentJames Rickards is a hedge fund manager in New York City and the author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis from Portfolio/Penguin. Follow him on Twitter: @JamesGRickards.
A most frequent lament about American politics is that there is no middle ground between the two major parties and bipartisanship is dead. Republicans are portrayed as heartless capitalists bent on pursuing private gain as public needs go unmet. Democrats are said to possess an unfounded belief that entitlements can expand forever. The result is gridlock at a time when action is needed to address unemployment and unsustainable deficits.
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Small Businesses Are Key to the Economy, Not Big Government
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2012 CommentBillie Redmond is a member of Job Creators Alliance, a nonprofit committed to defending the free enterprise system. She is also CEO of Coldwell Banker Commercial Trademark Properties.
In a public address last week, President Barack Obama stated that "the private sector is doing fine." Doing fine? That might be news to the 3.3 million "missing workers" or the more than 20 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed. It is particularly unbelievable in the context of a recent Federal Reserve report showing that the average American family lost nearly half of its net worth from 2007-2010. The president's comment has proved to be nothing more than a failed attempt to highlight what silver lining may be left in the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over the U.S. economy.
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American Airlines Is Thriving Despite Bankruptcy
Tweet Share on Facebook June 15, 2012 CommentThomas C. Lawton is a visiting professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business.
What has been happening recently at American Airlines? Its management has gone rather quiet since entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year. Inevitably, questions will arise: About progress on restructuring, when it will emerge from Chapter 11, and how it will successfully relaunch on a profit trajectory.
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Four Post-Partisan Ideas for a New Economy
Tweet Share on Facebook June 14, 2012 CommentDavid Brodwin is a cofounder and board member of American Sustainable Business Council. Follow him on Twitter at @davidbrodwin.
This week, 100 business owners and their allies came to the White House to ask for action on the economy. Such meetings happen often, but this one was different. The business leaders did not come to demand lower taxes, looser regulation, and smaller government. Instead they called for renewed growth based on a broad prosperity, wise public investment, and sustainable use of natural resources.
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Hurting Less After Recession, Top 10 Percent Should Pay More
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2012 CommentChad Stone is chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
We learned earlier this year that incomes at the very top began to rebound in 2010 from the financial crisis and Great Recession and that, in that year, about a fifth of total before-tax income went to the top 1 percent. This week, the Federal Reserve released information for 2010 about the distribution of wealth (or "net worth") that reminds us that wealth is even more highly concentrated than income.
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Why the Education Bubble Will Be Worse Than the Housing Bubble
Tweet Share on Facebook June 12, 2012 CommentAntony Davies is an affiliated senior scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and an associate professor of economics at Duquesne University. James R. Harrigan holds a Ph.D. in political science and is a fellow of the Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University.
Absent congressional action, the interest rates on federally subsidized student loans will double to 6.8 percent on July 1. Both President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney have urged Congress to act before that deadline, but no one seems willing to state the obvious: The problem is not the interest rate but that the federal government subsidizes student loans at all.
