Government Spending
Business & Economics
True cost of stimulus? Higher taxes
President Barack Obama is scheduled to place his signature Tuesday on the $787 billion economic stimulus bill. Unfortunately, the cost of debt and future taxes required to finance the stimulus largesse have largely been ignored to date. Putting aside the issues of whether you support a stimulus, whether any stimulus ...
Business & Economics
Obama Stimulus Not Necessary, as This Is No Great Depression
Milton Friedman had a rule: Increases or decreases in the money supply take six to nine months to alter economic output and as much as two years to move prices. As the Senate takes up the president’s stimulus package, the administration argues that, to avert another Great Depression, it is ...
Business & Economics
Expand Economic Freedom in 2009
The onset of 2009, with a new president taking office, is a good time to reconsider the benefits of economic freedom. Contrary to what partisans of big government claim, the empirical case for economic freedom has grown much stronger in the last 10 years, due to the development of objective ...
Commentary
Health-care budget realities
Before President-elect Barack Obama attempts to overhaul America’s health-care system and put us on the road toward “universal” coverage, he should have a chat with his new budget director, Peter Orszag. As former head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the agency responsible for estimating the cost of federal legislation, ...
Business & Economics
Governor’s Entrepreneurship Conference offers recommendations
To find out which state policies California’s small-business owners would like to change, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently convened a two-day conference in Los Angeles. Greater government dependency and intervention will reduce innovation, economic growth and job creation. Or, as Albert Einstein said, “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.” ...
Business & Economics
Some Stimulating Reading
Some Stimulating Reading With the bloated, ramshackle, pork-laden, grotesque corruption of a “stimulus bill” now headed to the U.S. Senate, here’s a handy list of arguments and sources as we debate America’s new lurch towards European-style social democracy: The Pacific Research Institute’s Robert Murphy explains the economic-policy mistake that underlies ...
Business & Economics
Mixed-bag of recommendations
Which state policies would California’s small-business owners like to change? To find out, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently convened a two-day conference in Los Angeles. The first-ever “Governor’s Conference on Small Business and Entrepreneurship” included small-business owners, community-college administrators, state employment and development officials, trade-group representatives, and policy researchers, including me. ...
Business & Economics
Obama Set to Change Science and Tech
When Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States this week, he promised that his administration would “restore science to its rightful place.” Whether reality will fit the rhetoric remains to be seen, and there are reasons to be both optimistic and a little wary. ...
Business & Economics
Taxpayer stimulus: Failures help sectors recalibrate
The sages at the National Bureau of Economic Research have finally concluded what many Americans have known for months: The United States is in a recession. Several prominent economists have recommended vast government spending as a cure. In the December issue of the New York Review of Books, Nobel Laureate ...
Business & Economics
Does “Depression Economics” Change the Rules?
Wily competitors have known for ages that if you can’t win the game, you can simply change the rules. Now, during normal economic times, if somebody recommended that the government borrow a trillion dollars and spend it on anything that moves, most economists (as well as common sense) would say, ...
True cost of stimulus? Higher taxes
President Barack Obama is scheduled to place his signature Tuesday on the $787 billion economic stimulus bill. Unfortunately, the cost of debt and future taxes required to finance the stimulus largesse have largely been ignored to date. Putting aside the issues of whether you support a stimulus, whether any stimulus ...
Obama Stimulus Not Necessary, as This Is No Great Depression
Milton Friedman had a rule: Increases or decreases in the money supply take six to nine months to alter economic output and as much as two years to move prices. As the Senate takes up the president’s stimulus package, the administration argues that, to avert another Great Depression, it is ...
Expand Economic Freedom in 2009
The onset of 2009, with a new president taking office, is a good time to reconsider the benefits of economic freedom. Contrary to what partisans of big government claim, the empirical case for economic freedom has grown much stronger in the last 10 years, due to the development of objective ...
Health-care budget realities
Before President-elect Barack Obama attempts to overhaul America’s health-care system and put us on the road toward “universal” coverage, he should have a chat with his new budget director, Peter Orszag. As former head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the agency responsible for estimating the cost of federal legislation, ...
Governor’s Entrepreneurship Conference offers recommendations
To find out which state policies California’s small-business owners would like to change, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently convened a two-day conference in Los Angeles. Greater government dependency and intervention will reduce innovation, economic growth and job creation. Or, as Albert Einstein said, “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.” ...
Some Stimulating Reading
Some Stimulating Reading With the bloated, ramshackle, pork-laden, grotesque corruption of a “stimulus bill” now headed to the U.S. Senate, here’s a handy list of arguments and sources as we debate America’s new lurch towards European-style social democracy: The Pacific Research Institute’s Robert Murphy explains the economic-policy mistake that underlies ...
Mixed-bag of recommendations
Which state policies would California’s small-business owners like to change? To find out, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently convened a two-day conference in Los Angeles. The first-ever “Governor’s Conference on Small Business and Entrepreneurship” included small-business owners, community-college administrators, state employment and development officials, trade-group representatives, and policy researchers, including me. ...
Obama Set to Change Science and Tech
When Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States this week, he promised that his administration would “restore science to its rightful place.” Whether reality will fit the rhetoric remains to be seen, and there are reasons to be both optimistic and a little wary. ...
Taxpayer stimulus: Failures help sectors recalibrate
The sages at the National Bureau of Economic Research have finally concluded what many Americans have known for months: The United States is in a recession. Several prominent economists have recommended vast government spending as a cure. In the December issue of the New York Review of Books, Nobel Laureate ...
Does “Depression Economics” Change the Rules?
Wily competitors have known for ages that if you can’t win the game, you can simply change the rules. Now, during normal economic times, if somebody recommended that the government borrow a trillion dollars and spend it on anything that moves, most economists (as well as common sense) would say, ...
