Inflation
Business & Economics
Town leaders knew of rising trash fees
Americans pay a “tort tax” of $865 billion a year, according to last year’s estimate by the Pacific Research Institute. This figure represents money taken out of the economy via awards, settlements, lawsuit-avoidance tactics and price inflation of products and services provided by litigation-prone industries. The scholarship is challenging, but ...
Business & Economics
Why California’s “Budget Wolf” Has Returned
SACRAMENTO – On February 16, Governor Schwarzenegger approved the California legislature’s plan to deal with the “fiscal emergency” that the governor declared on January 10, two days after he said that the “budget wolf” that California had managed to avoid for two years was now back at the door. The ...
Business & Economics
Terminating Fiscal Conservatism
“For several years, we kept the budget wolf from the door,” said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his State of the State Address. “But the wolf is back.” Two days after this speech — January 10 — the governor declared a “fiscal emergency,” forcing the legislature to develop a plan within ...
Agriculture
Bad Biofuel Policy Boosts Asian Inflation
Asia Sentinel (Hong Kong), 19 February 2008 The US decision to divert food crops for motor-fuel is proving a costly mistake – especially for Asia. What has long been predicted – that the US decision to push the use of corn to make biofuel would be a costly mistake – ...
Agriculture
Ethanol craze boosts food prices, world hunger
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (PA), February 15, 2008 Press Dakotan, February 15, 2008 Billings Gazette (MT), February 12, 2008 Investor’s Business Daily, February 11, 2008 WASHINGTON – The red-hot congressional love affair with the alternative fuel ethanol is starting to leave many supermarket customers feeling mighty blue these days as they pay ...
Commentary
Losing by ‘Saving’
To help close New York’s $4.4 billion budget deficit, Gov. Spitzer has put prescription drugs on the chopping block. His budget proposal for the next fiscal year would axe drug spending by $172 million from the $1.9 billion otherwise expected. The governor describes this as a way “to control the ...
Business & Economics
Government lacks magic bullet to kill recessions
Those who study a country’s economic conditions, mostly macro-economists, track general trends – inflation, unemployment, productivity, comparative strength of the currency, et cetera. But the basics of all these are mostly local matters, all about what happens to you, me, our neighbors, all about what we decide to do with ...
Business & Economics
The Fed Painted Into a Keynesian Corner
Although one sympathizes with Ben Bernanke—after all, it wasn’t his fault that Greenspan handed him an economy rigged with ticking housing and mortgage bombs—the harsh reality is that the Federal Reserve can’t create prosperity. Strip away all the pomp and glamour of “open market operations” and the like, and we’re ...
Business & Economics
State’s economy at year’s beginning
State lawmakers convening on Monday in Olympia will not have to rely on staff reports to tell them how bad the economy is, the evidence is all around them. A few reports they would be wise to read, however, are four released last year that examine the underbelly of the ...
Town leaders knew of rising trash fees
Americans pay a “tort tax” of $865 billion a year, according to last year’s estimate by the Pacific Research Institute. This figure represents money taken out of the economy via awards, settlements, lawsuit-avoidance tactics and price inflation of products and services provided by litigation-prone industries. The scholarship is challenging, but ...
Why California’s “Budget Wolf” Has Returned
SACRAMENTO – On February 16, Governor Schwarzenegger approved the California legislature’s plan to deal with the “fiscal emergency” that the governor declared on January 10, two days after he said that the “budget wolf” that California had managed to avoid for two years was now back at the door. The ...
Terminating Fiscal Conservatism
“For several years, we kept the budget wolf from the door,” said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his State of the State Address. “But the wolf is back.” Two days after this speech — January 10 — the governor declared a “fiscal emergency,” forcing the legislature to develop a plan within ...
Bad Biofuel Policy Boosts Asian Inflation
Asia Sentinel (Hong Kong), 19 February 2008 The US decision to divert food crops for motor-fuel is proving a costly mistake – especially for Asia. What has long been predicted – that the US decision to push the use of corn to make biofuel would be a costly mistake – ...
Ethanol craze boosts food prices, world hunger
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (PA), February 15, 2008 Press Dakotan, February 15, 2008 Billings Gazette (MT), February 12, 2008 Investor’s Business Daily, February 11, 2008 WASHINGTON – The red-hot congressional love affair with the alternative fuel ethanol is starting to leave many supermarket customers feeling mighty blue these days as they pay ...
Losing by ‘Saving’
To help close New York’s $4.4 billion budget deficit, Gov. Spitzer has put prescription drugs on the chopping block. His budget proposal for the next fiscal year would axe drug spending by $172 million from the $1.9 billion otherwise expected. The governor describes this as a way “to control the ...
Government lacks magic bullet to kill recessions
Those who study a country’s economic conditions, mostly macro-economists, track general trends – inflation, unemployment, productivity, comparative strength of the currency, et cetera. But the basics of all these are mostly local matters, all about what happens to you, me, our neighbors, all about what we decide to do with ...
The Fed Painted Into a Keynesian Corner
Although one sympathizes with Ben Bernanke—after all, it wasn’t his fault that Greenspan handed him an economy rigged with ticking housing and mortgage bombs—the harsh reality is that the Federal Reserve can’t create prosperity. Strip away all the pomp and glamour of “open market operations” and the like, and we’re ...
State’s economy at year’s beginning
State lawmakers convening on Monday in Olympia will not have to rely on staff reports to tell them how bad the economy is, the evidence is all around them. A few reports they would be wise to read, however, are four released last year that examine the underbelly of the ...
