U.S. Army Downsizes
NEWS FLASH! The Obama administration makes good on their “leading from behind” promise by announcing a Reduction In Force (RIF) of the U.S. Army of 40,000 soldiers and 17,000 civilian … Read More
The EPA, CO2, Mercury Emissions, and “Green” Energy
You no doubt heard last week that on June 29 the Supreme Court invalidated an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation limiting emissions of mercury and some other pollutants from coal … Read More
The Federal Reserve and Monetarism
Once the basic institutional facts about the Federal Reserve System have been presented, any discussion of the Fed should begin with a discussion of monetarism. After all, the Fed’s primary … Read More
Is Democracy the Best Government? Is It in Danger?
These two questions might seem rather strange, coming from a citizen of the United States. Yet I have been alarmed by a number of blog posts from people on the political Left … Read More
France in Distress
My sister-in-law has just sent us the URL of a truly amazing news video about France and the economic and social troubles it is undergoing. Click here to see it. … Read More
The Need for Dialogue
My main motivation for starting this website (other than to give myself a platform for venting my opinions) was to start conversations. What this world desperately needs is more dialogues … Read More
Economic Effects of the Dodd-Frank Act
The Dodd-Frank Act is the solution to a problem that does not exist, and is therefore totally unnecessary. The causes of the 2007-2008 financial crisis were not private sector greed … Read More
Civil Disobedience (Continued)
It seems like Charles Murray’s call for conservative civil disobedience is garnering more interest. An interview of Murray by a somewhat skeptical Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic magazine has just … Read More
Causes of the 2007-2008 U.S. Financial Crisis
Although we discussed some of the reasons why the U.S. economy has not recovered very robustly from the 2007-2008 financial crisis, we have not looked at exactly why the crisis happened. … Read More
The Debilitating Effects of Obamacare
So now the Supreme Court has ruled that it does not matter what the plain language of a legislative bill is. They claim to be able to sense what the … Read More
Echoes of the Great Depression: Japan
I was expecting “Japan’s lost decades” to be an easy story to tell. However, when I started researching for this post, I discovered a controversy existed on whether a lost decade … Read More
Echoes of the Great Depression: Europe
For all of my life the nations of Europe have been very much to the left of center. I suppose this condition is the legacy of dirigisme and socialism in France, Bismarck’s … Read More
Echoes of the Great Depression: America, Europe, and Japan
Although we are technically no longer in a recession, the rate of economic growth is so low that the economy for many people seems like it is in recession. Below … Read More
Why Did the Great Depression Last So Long?
Because of the complexity of the Great Depression, there are several different ways in which you can date the beginning and ending of this immense event. Many people date the … Read More
Iran: the Present and Future Enemy
There are times when I get an almost surreal feeling that we are hurtling toward Armageddon. In the midst of American negotiations with Iran on limiting their nuclear program, international … Read More
The Long Arm of the Federal Government Monster
This morning I read something immensely disturbing on the Wall Street Journal opinion page (access requires subscription). It reconfirms for me (as if I were ever in doubt) how controlling the … Read More
What If They Threw a Recession and Nobody Came?
Rich Danker in the Weekly Standard writes in the guise of a book review about a favorite conservative theme: How a distressed economy in recession, left to its own devices … Read More
Beware BEPS!
The acronym BEPS stands for “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” and the BEPS project is an effort by the OECD to study perceived flaws in international tax rules. The perception that multinational … Read More
The Keynesian- Neoclassical Ideological Conflict (2)
When we left this discussion, we had found that a Keynesian economist believes government stimulus spending must be used to kick-start (pump-prime?) the economy out of recession.
Neoclassical economists on the other hand believe care must be taken not to damage an already distressed economy further.
The Keynesian- Neoclassical Ideological Conflict (1)
Quite possibly the most consequential ideological conflict within Western nations today is the battle of economic ideas between Keynesian and neoclassical thought. Since Keynesian ideas mandate greater power and a larger … Read More
The Federal Reserve: What It Is
Flag of the Federal Reserve Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons The Federal Reserve System is one of those government organizations that most people hear about from … Read More
Should We Fight ISIS? (4)
In the very first post in this series I asked how can ISIS challenge the mighty west? And the answer is that they really cannot so long as we are willing to … Read More
Should We Fight ISIS? (3)
Before we seriously engage ISIS in combat (which we haven’t yet), we should think a bit about our capability to do so. My own experiences as a junior artillery officer … Read More
Civil Disobedience
This morning Michael Barone passed on a suggestion from Charles Murray: Government has become so intrusive in our lives and limits so much of our personnel freedoms, particularly economic, that … Read More
The Ferguson Effect
Last week some news outlets took note of a big crime wave that began in Baltimore after six Baltimore police officers were indicted for the murder of Freddie Gray [See … Read More
Economy Becoming Increasingly Ill
Yesterday the government announced its first revision of first quarter annualized GDP growth. The revision, as expected, was downward so that Q1 growth is no longer recorded as the first … Read More
Should We Fight ISIS? (2)
If we do go to war with ISIS, a large national commitment would have to be made in assets, both economic and military, to accomplish the task. Given both our historically … Read More
The Law of Marginal Utility
This is the last of the major neoclassical economic laws we must cover. It completes the basic framework of neoclassic economics around which other economic statements can be derived. See reference … Read More
How Should We Think About ISIS?
One big disagreement between the right and the left over the past year is how we should think about ISIS. Should we think of the conflict between ISIS and western … Read More