Inflation
Business & Economics
Canada’s advantage
As Canada’s experience in the 1990s showed, the path to economic growth lies in shrinking government, not growing it This past weekend, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty encouraged the G20 countries to rapidly implement their stimulus packages, highlighting that his government provided a greater stimulus budget than the G20 countries agreed ...
Jason Clemens
April 28, 2009
Business & Economics
Tort Law Tally
San Francisco – The Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a free-market think tank based in California, released Tort Law Tally, a new report identifying which state tort reforms reduce tort losses and tort insurance premiums the most. The analysis identifies 18 reforms to state civil-justice systems that significantly reduce tort losses ...
Lawrence J. McQuillan
April 28, 2009
Business & Economics
Tort Laws that Save Americans the Most Money
Attorney-Retention Sunshine and Daubert Rule are Most Effective Tort Reforms San Francisco – The Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a free-market think tank based in California, today released Tort Law Tally, a new report identifying which state tort reforms reduce tort losses and tort insurance premiums the most. The analysis identifies ...
Pacific Research Institute
April 28, 2009
Business & Economics
The Nuttiness of Negative Interest Rates
In his April 18 New York Times op-ed, Harvard professor (and Bush adviser) Greg Mankiw calls on the Federal Reserve to promise future inflation, in order to fix the economy. Mankiw’s article beautifully illustrates what is wrong with today’s economics profession: it consists of very sharp guys (and gals) who ...
Robert P. Murphy
April 27, 2009
Commentary
Court Rules Tax-Credit Scholarship Program Constitutional
On April 21, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a tax-credit scholarship program remains constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling marks the latest failure by opponents of parental choice in education to halt the program and spells good news for California. Choice opponents ...
Vicki E. Murray
April 23, 2009
Business & Economics
Will New Fed “Tools” Avert Hyperinflation?
04/22/09 Nashville, Tennessee People often accuse me of making “irresponsible” forecasts of massive price inflation. Even though they know that history is replete with examples of central banks ruining their currencies, these critics are sure that “it can’t happen here.” So in the present article I’d like to make the ...
Robert P. Murphy
April 22, 2009
Business & Economics
The Real Lessons of the Great Depression
Since late 2007, more and more commentators have drawn parallels between our current financial crisis and the Great Depression. Nobel laureates and presidential advisorsDownload PDF confidently proclaim that it was Herbert Hoover’s laissez-faire penny pinching that exacerbated the Depression, and that the American economy was saved only when FDR boldly ...
Robert P. Murphy
April 20, 2009
Business & Economics
California’s ‘Spending Limit’ Is A Sham
The outlook for the California economy is dreadful, driven by a deeply perverse tax and regulatory environment, combined with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s highly successful five-year effort to avoid hard choices. And so the state budget, the utter profligacy of which for years has been papered over with accounting tricks and ...
Benjamin Zycher
April 14, 2009
Business & Economics
Putting Drug Research in Legal Jeopardy
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Wyeth v. Levine—holding that drug manufacturers are not free of liability under state law, even when the drug in question has secured federal regulatory approval—has worried pharmaceutical manufacturers, who can now face crippling state tort lawsuits despite being in regulatory compliance. A less-noticed ...
Lawrence J. McQuillan
April 3, 2009
Agriculture
The ‘credit crunch’: another Great Depression?
In the first part of his essay on the 1930s and today, Sean Collins puts the case for going beyond Keynesianism and monetarism and the obsession with finance to look at the deeper structural problems of capitalism. Last month Christina Romer, chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, ...
Sean Collins
April 1, 2009
Canada’s advantage
As Canada’s experience in the 1990s showed, the path to economic growth lies in shrinking government, not growing it This past weekend, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty encouraged the G20 countries to rapidly implement their stimulus packages, highlighting that his government provided a greater stimulus budget than the G20 countries agreed ...
Tort Law Tally
San Francisco – The Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a free-market think tank based in California, released Tort Law Tally, a new report identifying which state tort reforms reduce tort losses and tort insurance premiums the most. The analysis identifies 18 reforms to state civil-justice systems that significantly reduce tort losses ...
Tort Laws that Save Americans the Most Money
Attorney-Retention Sunshine and Daubert Rule are Most Effective Tort Reforms San Francisco – The Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a free-market think tank based in California, today released Tort Law Tally, a new report identifying which state tort reforms reduce tort losses and tort insurance premiums the most. The analysis identifies ...
The Nuttiness of Negative Interest Rates
In his April 18 New York Times op-ed, Harvard professor (and Bush adviser) Greg Mankiw calls on the Federal Reserve to promise future inflation, in order to fix the economy. Mankiw’s article beautifully illustrates what is wrong with today’s economics profession: it consists of very sharp guys (and gals) who ...
Court Rules Tax-Credit Scholarship Program Constitutional
On April 21, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a tax-credit scholarship program remains constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling marks the latest failure by opponents of parental choice in education to halt the program and spells good news for California. Choice opponents ...
Will New Fed “Tools” Avert Hyperinflation?
04/22/09 Nashville, Tennessee People often accuse me of making “irresponsible” forecasts of massive price inflation. Even though they know that history is replete with examples of central banks ruining their currencies, these critics are sure that “it can’t happen here.” So in the present article I’d like to make the ...
The Real Lessons of the Great Depression
Since late 2007, more and more commentators have drawn parallels between our current financial crisis and the Great Depression. Nobel laureates and presidential advisorsDownload PDF confidently proclaim that it was Herbert Hoover’s laissez-faire penny pinching that exacerbated the Depression, and that the American economy was saved only when FDR boldly ...
California’s ‘Spending Limit’ Is A Sham
The outlook for the California economy is dreadful, driven by a deeply perverse tax and regulatory environment, combined with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s highly successful five-year effort to avoid hard choices. And so the state budget, the utter profligacy of which for years has been papered over with accounting tricks and ...
Putting Drug Research in Legal Jeopardy
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Wyeth v. Levine—holding that drug manufacturers are not free of liability under state law, even when the drug in question has secured federal regulatory approval—has worried pharmaceutical manufacturers, who can now face crippling state tort lawsuits despite being in regulatory compliance. A less-noticed ...
The ‘credit crunch’: another Great Depression?
In the first part of his essay on the 1930s and today, Sean Collins puts the case for going beyond Keynesianism and monetarism and the obsession with finance to look at the deeper structural problems of capitalism. Last month Christina Romer, chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, ...