This, from the Wall Street Journal: High-wage earners, Wall Street hedge-fund managers, oil-and-gas investors, corporate executives, well-to-do seniors and Washington lobbyists all take hits in President Barack Obama’s budget plan. The budget winners include middle-class families, low-wage workers, lower-income retirees, veterans, preschoolers, college students and the homeless. Now I guess we all have to decide […]
There are no “free” markets in the sense that “anything goes.” All markets operate within a set of rules. Sometimes those rules are implicit, like be honest or your reputation will suffer and you’ll find yourself unable to conduct business. Other times, the rules are explicit, like the requirements that financial institutions should have enough […]
The government has posted its revised GDP numbers for the last three months of 2008, and they are ugly – a 6.2% annualized rate of decline. I link to the New York Times story on the GDP, which includes this nugget: Among the more distressing aspects of the report, according to Joseph Brusuelas, a director […]
Just a shout out to the Peoria Area World Affairs Council, which is holding what looks to be a really interesting conference on Pakistan this weekend: “Pakistan: Dangers, Insights & Strategies.” It starts tonight. The Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. speaks tomorrow afternoon. A pretty good “get” there!
In the Peoria Journal Star today, Paul Gordon writes about a report produced by the Peoria area’s economic development organization. The report is designed to make everyone feel better about the local economy. Apparently, the Heartland Partnership has gotten some grief over its ad campaign that says “It’s better here,” even with the poor economy […]
From an AP article, three U.S. House representatives from Illinois – two Republicans and one Democrat – have sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy to get stimulus bill money for the FutureGen coal plant near Mattoon, Ill. Of course, as we all know, every single Republican in the House voted against the […]
This is from a footnote in Robert L. Heilbroner’s “The Nature and Logic of Capitalism.” It’s a bit convoluted, but bear with it: I cannot resist adding an example of the modern use of economics as a system of clarificatory belief. Thomas Schelling writes: “[T]he free market may not do much, or anything, to distribute […]
Free markets are great – right up until they’re not.Free trade is great – right up until it’s not.It’s liberals that have the perspective and tools to point out the “nots” in conservative economics.
Conservatives like to talk a lot about market discipline – that people who make poor decisions should pay the price. But what about people who make the “right” decisions – or no decisions at all in a given case – and yet still get slammed by economic events?
A post from Ezra Klein highlighting the useful – and accurate – re-framing that’s making it’s way around the blogosphere: conservatives’ “entitlement reform” is just a subset of health care reform.
Bill Poorman 