Maybe you have read some articles in the past weeks about insurance providers leaving the Obamacare market in some states (I just read another one today). Well, it likely will get worse. Here is what is happening. First we need to understand how Obamacare works. The entire scheme was predicated on the ability to tax […]
Archives
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The Obamacare Slow Leak
22 Aug 2016
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I have so far avoided taking any position on the two main candidates for president. For my colleague Mark Smith, don’t worry, I will. I intend to continue the path of avoidance in this blog. Today I would like to examine and evaluate each candidate’s economic program. I say nothing about their personal morality, or […]
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The Progressive Dream: In Reality
30 Jun 2016
In the period from about 1890 to 1920, labeled the Progressive Era, political thinkers, economists (a new profession then) and public intellectuals told Americans and Europeans that the best way to get efficient government that actually worked was to create independent boards, commissions and other similar organizations. We were told they would be free from […]
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The latest Obama Admin edict: Let them eat Tofu!
28 Jun 2016
In today’s Wall Street Journal (gated) reports on a political battle over the provision of food stamps, and it illustrates much of what is wrong in Washington DC. Many of us lament the almost doubling of the number of people receiving food stamps, with only a slight drop off well after the recession is over. We […]
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In a National Review article of June 21, 2016, Michael Barone explored the question of whether the United States economy has shown any growth, and if not, why not. The article, entitled “Why We have—and Probably Will Keep Having—Sluggish Job Growth,” relies on a recently published book by the economist Arnold Kling, Specialization and Trade: […]
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Tales from the economic heartland–we don’t kill the golden goose, we just bleed it slowly
24 Jun 2016
Janet Yellen (Federal Reserve chair) received a lot of press in last week after the Fed’s meeting, where she acknowledging that monetary policy can’t really solve the slow growth rate of the U.S. economy. She, as many other economists, believe there are structural problems which leave us in a “new normal” of lower economic growth […]
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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 […]
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This is Not a Shampoo Commercial: It’s Worse
07 May 2016
I read another article today on the evils of occupational licensing, this one coming from Tennessee, which requires 300 hours of approved training to (get this) shampoo hair. And the so-called shampoo degree coats upwards of $5,000 to $12,000! (see The Daily Signal of ma2, at http://dailysignal.com/2016/05/02/it-takes-300-hours-to-become-a-shampooer-in-tennessee). After reading the entire article I was just […]
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Minimum Wage, Minimum Work, Minimum Dignity
11 Apr 2016
California, predictably, has passed a $15/hour minimum wage. New York is likely to. A few cities have done it already. Bernie Sanders wants a Federal wage of $15, while Hillary Clinton wants a $12 wage. And so the issue is once again on the table, at a time when wages are stagnant and unemployment is […]
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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 […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach