A major part of the Dodd-Frank bill that Mr. Obama and the Democratic congress of 2009-2010 was the creation of an agency to protect consumers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Dodd-Frank was troubling enough; I’ll not delve too deeply into that murky mess other than to note the irony of the financial reform bill […]
Archives
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“The LORD, He is God; the LORD, He is God.”
04 May 2016
I woke this morning earlier than usual (around 4:30) and my mind raced to the reality that Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee. It’s certainly easy to get discouraged, perhaps even to lose sleep. Yet in my quiet time this morning (one of the benefits of getting up early), as I reflected on what God […]
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Trumpeting toward Irrationality
03 May 2016
During my graduate studies at George Mason University, I was blessed with outstanding faculty, especially in the field of Public Choice economics (the study of the public sector using economic methodology). Nobel Laureate James Buchanan led the intellectual tradition, but there were many other fine minds, including a brash young economist from Princeton, Bryan Caplan. I […]
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Marc Clauson’s posts over the last few weeks generated a lot of heat, and perhaps less light than would be good (not due to his writing). Given the emotion on this issue we saw here at BATG, I would refer you to The Gospel Coalition today. Trevin Wax has a great post, raising several questions […]
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The Obama Economy: The first president ever without a single year of 3% economic growth.
28 Apr 2016
The good news is that Mr. Obama’s economic record is not the worst; he’s ahead of four other presidents: Assuming 2.67% RGDP growth for 2016, Obama will leave office having produced an average of1.55% growth. This would place his presidency fourth from the bottom of the list of 39*, above only those of Herbert Hoover […]
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The United States of Insolvency
22 Apr 2016
This past week my macroeconomics classes finished their review of the national debt. I assign it in the vain hopes that perhaps my small efforts will awaken at least our students from the slumber of wishful thinking and denial of reality. One of the best parts of being at a Christ-centered university is to be […]
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I’m flying back from Las Vegas as I type this post, just finishing a great conference with the Association of Private Enterprise Education, along with one of our senior students. When we flew into Vegas on Sunday, we had a muscle-bound Bulgarian cabbie, and on the way home today, we had a young man named […]
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Mr. Trump: Economic Leadership MIA
15 Mar 2016
Today we find ourselves watching and wondering, after eight years of what I consider failed leadership, will we get an improvement? There are so many huge issues our country faces, and they have been exacerbated by our current Divider-In-Chief. Pitting one group of Americans against others, while lamenting partisanship, has been a hallmark of Mr. […]
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The Robots are Coming, the Robots are Coming!
23 Feb 2016
So warns Mr. Obama in this year’s Economic Report of the President. And the fear is that this accelerating automation will replace low-skilled jobs. It’s intuitive that automation will take low-wage jobs.But the White House, in its annual economic report of the president, has broken down just how much that is so. There’s an 83% chance that […]
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When all the institutions of public policy remain committed to Keynesian economic fallacy, what hope have we that we will have real recovery? I’ve written before about my despair that public discussion of inflation/deflation is almost completely backwards, with inflation now a good thing and deflation something that will be very harmful. The reality is […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach