This question is at the heart of Michael Hepner’s recent article over at RealClearPolitics. Hepner, a professor at the University of Dubuque, argues that we are failing our students and depriving them of a sound education when we allow them to ignore or skip over their general education requirements and focus on their major courses […]

There are forthcoming stories, and now video, surrounding the house-to-house search for Tsarnaev in Watertown, MA. The video is interesting for several reasons. First, notice the harshness of the interactions. Citizens are yelled at and berated as soon as they are visible to the law enforcement agents. Second, the use of force is implicit. Everyone […]

 Well, in one day it appears we have two interesting pieces of economic news.  In the greater scheme of life these may not rate at the top, but they may be significant.  On the one hand, we have learned that the Bureau of Economic Analysis, an arm of the Commerce Department that provides economic statistics, […]

UPDATE: The Obama Administration has decided NOT to try Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant. This is good news for civil liberties. The initial phase of the Boston Bombing investigation appears to be winding down. With one of the suspects killed, and another detained, the F.B.I., according to media sources, is engaged in a wider search […]

PIMCO’s Bill Gross came out swinging today against European austerity today, this after reports that Reinhart and Rogoff’s well-regarded work on debt had some statistical errors on the danger of debt.  So today Mr. Gross told the FT, “The U.K. and almost all of Europe have erred in terms of believing that austerity, fiscal austerity […]

Welcome to the news of the 21st Century, ladies and gentlemen. I was working late last night and flipped over to Twitter and saw it light up with information about the Boston suspects, MIT, and a shoot-out either on or around campus. People were linking to the police scanner, web-pages were transcribing events as they […]

The Manchin-Toomey Amendment, which would have expanded national background checks and closed some gun-show loopholes for gun purchases, was defeated in the U.S. Senate yesterday, likely ending President Obama’s push for new gun laws. There are many political lessons to be learned from, and reasons for, the bill’s defeat. The bill had 54 votes (55 […]

This debate on immigration is a very helpful one.  Dr. Wheeler did catch me in a missatement, that is, my statement that “millions of immigrants wish to come to America with little capital, little skill and, in some cases, little desire to work”.  I remember vividly–and to my regret–that as I was typing this, I […]

Unfortunately I don’t have a good answer.  But I think our understanding of political economy has to include a realization that there is often a disconnect between what we might consider the facts and what is reflected in public opinion and therefore turned into public policy.  For example, why do so many Americans support an […]

I thank my esteemed colleague, Marc Clauson, for his timely response to yesterday’s post on immigration reform. I do look forward to the ongoing debate on this issue as Congress crafts immigration reform legislation. Immigration policy has been problematic for decades with major revisions in the law in 1996 and 1986. Unless our current law […]