Inflation
Business & Economics
California: The National Petri Dish
Supposedly, trends start in California and then spread to the rest of the country, a notion that seems to be confirmed by the latest economic news. In May, California’s unemployment rate hit 11.5 percent—the highest it has been since 1941. This morning we learn that unemployment for the entire country ...
Health Care
PRI’s John R. Graham visits the Paddock
Healthcare Horserace (American Liberty Alliance), June 15, 2009 As the debate on Capitol Hill continues to focus on just how much government is too much government in the healthcare industry, we thought you might like to hear an alternative point of view. So, we enlisted John R. Graham, Director of ...
Business & Economics
Why I Expect Serious Stagflation
However, even though unemployment rates will not be as severe, I still predict that we are in store for a miserable decade of economic stagnation. Given all of the huge assaults of the federal government into the private sector in just the past six months, I frankly don’t understand how ...
Commentary
How to Bankrupt a Country
What if you found that your personal income this year will be $55,000, but you will spend $100,000 — even though you had no prior savings? And what if next year’s picture looked similar, and the year after that, and so on? If President Obama were your personal financial advisor, ...
Business & Economics
New Deal Reality Check
As self-proclaimed intellectuals get embarassingly excited over the prospect of a new, New Deal, the rest of us would do well to take every opportunity to examine how the first one turned out. For one thing, it didn’t start under Roosevelt. In The Politically Incorrect Guide To The Great Depression ...
Commentary
The End of Medical Miracles?
Scientific discoveries are neither inevitable nor predictable Americans have, at best, a love-hate relationship with the life-sciences industry—the term for the sector of the economy that produces pharmaceuticals, biologics (like vaccines), and medical devices. These days, the mere mention of a pharmaceutical manufacturer seems to elicit gut-level hostility. Journalists, operating ...
Business & Economics
An Agenda For California’s Fiscal Reform
The California state budget for years has been “balanced” with heavy borrowing, various kinds of raids on localities and special funds, and transfers from the future to the present. More generally, spending profligacy, high tax rates and onerous regulations have worked their magic: The gap between the ability of the ...
Health Care
Obama’s Healthcare Reform Malpractice
OBAMA’S HEALTHCARE REFORM MALPRACTICE Josiah Swampoodle – The only people Obama and congressional leaders are barring from the table in discussions of healthcare reform are people who advocate healthcare reform. You can’t solve a problem by only talking to those who created it. James Ridgway, Unsilent Generation – In a ...
Business & Economics
A swift re-tort: How to fight lawsuit abuse
America’s economy remains in terrible shape and federal lawmakers are trying to kick-start a recovery by spending money. A better strategy would be to reform the country’s inefficient tort system, which is failing to promptly compensate true victims. Instead, meritless lawsuits clog courtrooms while outsized monetary awards cripple businesses and ...
Business & Economics
An inevitable blast
Economist Robert P Murphy at the blog Free Advice must have heard me screeching with Total Mogambo Disrespect (TMD) about Congress and Barack Obama deficit-spending almost US$2 trillion this year, and he says, “If fiscal policy is a disaster, monetary policy is even worse.” I interrupt and say, “You said ...
California: The National Petri Dish
Supposedly, trends start in California and then spread to the rest of the country, a notion that seems to be confirmed by the latest economic news. In May, California’s unemployment rate hit 11.5 percent—the highest it has been since 1941. This morning we learn that unemployment for the entire country ...
PRI’s John R. Graham visits the Paddock
Healthcare Horserace (American Liberty Alliance), June 15, 2009 As the debate on Capitol Hill continues to focus on just how much government is too much government in the healthcare industry, we thought you might like to hear an alternative point of view. So, we enlisted John R. Graham, Director of ...
Why I Expect Serious Stagflation
However, even though unemployment rates will not be as severe, I still predict that we are in store for a miserable decade of economic stagnation. Given all of the huge assaults of the federal government into the private sector in just the past six months, I frankly don’t understand how ...
How to Bankrupt a Country
What if you found that your personal income this year will be $55,000, but you will spend $100,000 — even though you had no prior savings? And what if next year’s picture looked similar, and the year after that, and so on? If President Obama were your personal financial advisor, ...
New Deal Reality Check
As self-proclaimed intellectuals get embarassingly excited over the prospect of a new, New Deal, the rest of us would do well to take every opportunity to examine how the first one turned out. For one thing, it didn’t start under Roosevelt. In The Politically Incorrect Guide To The Great Depression ...
The End of Medical Miracles?
Scientific discoveries are neither inevitable nor predictable Americans have, at best, a love-hate relationship with the life-sciences industry—the term for the sector of the economy that produces pharmaceuticals, biologics (like vaccines), and medical devices. These days, the mere mention of a pharmaceutical manufacturer seems to elicit gut-level hostility. Journalists, operating ...
An Agenda For California’s Fiscal Reform
The California state budget for years has been “balanced” with heavy borrowing, various kinds of raids on localities and special funds, and transfers from the future to the present. More generally, spending profligacy, high tax rates and onerous regulations have worked their magic: The gap between the ability of the ...
Obama’s Healthcare Reform Malpractice
OBAMA’S HEALTHCARE REFORM MALPRACTICE Josiah Swampoodle – The only people Obama and congressional leaders are barring from the table in discussions of healthcare reform are people who advocate healthcare reform. You can’t solve a problem by only talking to those who created it. James Ridgway, Unsilent Generation – In a ...
A swift re-tort: How to fight lawsuit abuse
America’s economy remains in terrible shape and federal lawmakers are trying to kick-start a recovery by spending money. A better strategy would be to reform the country’s inefficient tort system, which is failing to promptly compensate true victims. Instead, meritless lawsuits clog courtrooms while outsized monetary awards cripple businesses and ...
An inevitable blast
Economist Robert P Murphy at the blog Free Advice must have heard me screeching with Total Mogambo Disrespect (TMD) about Congress and Barack Obama deficit-spending almost US$2 trillion this year, and he says, “If fiscal policy is a disaster, monetary policy is even worse.” I interrupt and say, “You said ...
