Economy
In a strong indication that, among journalistic practitioners, the biased media narrative is more a matter of intellectual laziness than cultural duplicity, the latest canned story, by Los Angeles Times reporter Don Lee, is that workplace discrimination is landing men the great majority of “newly created” jobs: Since the recession ended in June 2009, men…
One hears anecdotes, from time to time, about young adults who simply do not understand the habits associated with holding a job. Punctuality, an understanding that sometimes tedious or undesirable activities are necessary, and an appreciation of the relationship between consumer and vendor are all examples. Giving young adults the opportunity to learn such principles…
From GoLocalWorcester. Mass. residents spent close to $1 billion last year at New England casinos, continuing in a trend of increased spending over the past several years that beat out every other state in the area. This year was the first time that the Bay State outspent its neighbors, totaling a cool $909 million on…
President Obama’s teleprompter style has been the subject of substantial (often mocking) critical commentary, and with some justification, as this nearly parodic 2010 video from a Virginia classroom proves: Given recent political events, one can sympathize with the desire of public officials to avoid extemporaneous speech. In a world in which one’s every public utterance…
About a month ago, I presented a comparison of estimates for the nation’s public-sector pension problem. While none of the results were encouraging, there was huge variation in the degree of frightfulness — the difference mainly being in the way in which they calculate liabilities. One of the economists, Andrew Biggs, of the American Enterprise…
I’ve been following taxpayer migration data for years, but in a haphazard way. A new study that I’ve coauthored for the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity finally gave me the opportunity to review all fifteen years of available data from the IRS. The picture — from the 2003 beginning of what can only be…
Remember when the local PolitiFact took the Ocean State Policy Research Institute (OSPRI) to task for claiming that the estate tax was driving Rhode Islanders out, especially down to America’s retirement peninsula? One statement from that article has stuck with me, over the year and a half since: One expert was Kail Padquitt, staff economist…
Yesterday we learned that the economy created 80,000 jobs and was at 8.2%, which President Obama called “a step in the right direction”. Back in 2004, coming out of a recession, the economy created 310,000 new jobs and unemployment was at 5.6%. But that wasn’t good enough–wasn’t the real story–for a little-known state legislator running…
So, the town of Barrington is well on its way to banning the use of plastic shopping bags among the commercial establishments within its borders: … the town conservation commission has already voted to ban the use of plastic grocery bags at retail stores. The proposal now goes before the Town Council for review. If…
One meme that some are attempting to make take hold (including the President; “the public sector isn’t fine”) is that the high unemployment we’re seeing is in large part because of the loss of public-sector jobs and especially at the local level:See that little dip in public sector employment? That right there’s you’re problem. But,…