Business & Economics
Business & Economics
Double dip looks doubly certain
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (MarketWatch) — Economists and financial analysts are currently arguing whether the economy will experience a “double dip,” a recession followed by a short recovery, followed by another recession. Some think the worst is behind us, and that output and employment will slowly but steadily increase during the next ...
Robert P. Murphy
July 20, 2010
Business & Economics
LA TIMES: There’s no defense for the estate tax
In his July 6 Op-Ed, law professor Ray D. Madoff made a case for the estate tax, claiming that it promoted tax fairness and economic growth. Madoff is wrong on both counts. The estate tax violates common principles of justice and stifles economic growth. Congress should permanently lock in this ...
Robert P. Murphy
July 14, 2010
Business & Economics
Can GOP quit weed whacking?
Sacramento – If the California Republican Party were serious about its oft-stated calls for limiting government, then it should be championing an initiative on the November ballot that would reduce government interference in our lives, increase the efficiency of law-enforcement, protect property rights and help fill the gaping hole in ...
Steven Greenhut
July 10, 2010
Business & Economics
State Crime Lab Task Force Shutdown Vote Sets Example
State Crime Lab Task Force Shutdown Vote Sets Example By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director In early June the California State Crime Lab Task Force voted to shut itself down. This unusual action sets a good example for other state entities, and for legislators looking to trim state government. Most ...
K. Lloyd Billingsley
July 7, 2010
Business & Economics
Census Nonsense
Vol. 14 No. 07: July 6, 2010 Census Nonsense By Sally C. Pipes, President and CEO, Pacific Research Institute Some 2010 Census results are in, and Contrarian readers will be pleased to know that feminist organizations are already hard at work massaging the data to fit their tired narrative. This ...
Sally C. Pipes
July 6, 2010
Business & Economics
Police budget cuts won’t spike crime
SACRAMENTO – “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary,” observed the journalist, critic and satirist H.L. Mencken. Mencken perhaps would not have envisioned the ...
Steven Greenhut
July 2, 2010
Business & Economics
Make California ‘open for business’
California’s unemployment rate, according to the most recent figures, is 12.4 percent, down from a revised 12.5 percent the month before, which was the highest jobless rate ever recorded for California since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting standardized data in 1976. Such high unemployment is powerful evidence of ...
Pacific Research Institute
June 26, 2010
Business & Economics
Government ‘too big to fail’ and too big to succeed
These days, one is hard-pressed to read a newspaper or watch the news without encountering the phrase “too big to fail.” The debate over TBTF, as it also is known, completely ignores the one institution that deserves attention when assessing the real risks of TBTF: government. To get a sense ...
Jason Clemens
June 25, 2010
Business & Economics
Oil Producers’ Liability Should Not Be Unlimited
Everyone loves a villain. And with the Deepwater Horizon disaster at the two-month mark, the love knows no bounds, uniting much of the political-media complex in a sticky goo of opportunism, finger-pointing and phony demands for apologies. That BP–having schmoozed the environmental left for years while compiling a dreadful safety ...
Benjamin Zycher
June 25, 2010
Double dip looks doubly certain
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (MarketWatch) — Economists and financial analysts are currently arguing whether the economy will experience a “double dip,” a recession followed by a short recovery, followed by another recession. Some think the worst is behind us, and that output and employment will slowly but steadily increase during the next ...
LA TIMES: There’s no defense for the estate tax
In his July 6 Op-Ed, law professor Ray D. Madoff made a case for the estate tax, claiming that it promoted tax fairness and economic growth. Madoff is wrong on both counts. The estate tax violates common principles of justice and stifles economic growth. Congress should permanently lock in this ...
Can GOP quit weed whacking?
Sacramento – If the California Republican Party were serious about its oft-stated calls for limiting government, then it should be championing an initiative on the November ballot that would reduce government interference in our lives, increase the efficiency of law-enforcement, protect property rights and help fill the gaping hole in ...
State Crime Lab Task Force Shutdown Vote Sets Example
State Crime Lab Task Force Shutdown Vote Sets Example By K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director In early June the California State Crime Lab Task Force voted to shut itself down. This unusual action sets a good example for other state entities, and for legislators looking to trim state government. Most ...
Census Nonsense
Vol. 14 No. 07: July 6, 2010 Census Nonsense By Sally C. Pipes, President and CEO, Pacific Research Institute Some 2010 Census results are in, and Contrarian readers will be pleased to know that feminist organizations are already hard at work massaging the data to fit their tired narrative. This ...
Police budget cuts won’t spike crime
SACRAMENTO – “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary,” observed the journalist, critic and satirist H.L. Mencken. Mencken perhaps would not have envisioned the ...
Make California ‘open for business’
California’s unemployment rate, according to the most recent figures, is 12.4 percent, down from a revised 12.5 percent the month before, which was the highest jobless rate ever recorded for California since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting standardized data in 1976. Such high unemployment is powerful evidence of ...
Government ‘too big to fail’ and too big to succeed
These days, one is hard-pressed to read a newspaper or watch the news without encountering the phrase “too big to fail.” The debate over TBTF, as it also is known, completely ignores the one institution that deserves attention when assessing the real risks of TBTF: government. To get a sense ...
Oil Producers’ Liability Should Not Be Unlimited
Everyone loves a villain. And with the Deepwater Horizon disaster at the two-month mark, the love knows no bounds, uniting much of the political-media complex in a sticky goo of opportunism, finger-pointing and phony demands for apologies. That BP–having schmoozed the environmental left for years while compiling a dreadful safety ...