Economy
First, according to USA Today: The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office…Federal workers earning $150,000 or more make up 3.9% of the workforce, up from 0.4% in 2005….Since 2000, federal pay and benefits have increased 3%…
So, the ProJo editors decided to attack “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” for “fiscal hyper-hypocrisy“. Following the NY Times lead, the ProJo cites data from ProPublica showing that “oil-rich Alaska leads in per-capita federal stimulus money — $3,145.” They go on to list the 8 next highest spending/capita states–Montana, Vermont, North Dakota, New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho, Massachusetts…
Taking some legislation that President Obama has proposed as his cue, Andrew Biggs makes the case against legislative corrections to the gender pay gap. All such arguments come down to the point that there are legitimate reasons that men, in aggregate, make more money than women, and Biggs gives the underlying reason why that can…
2+ minutes of pithy comments by Milton Friedman on greed, enlightened self-interest, and how societies and free markets work. A succinct summary on the two meanings of being pro-business from Don Boudreaux, who writes for the Café Hayek blog and is a professor of economics at George Mason University: There are two ways for a…
Back when I was a teenager and thought vehicles an important means of branding, I was a GM guy, especially Pontiacs. Somehow, my group of friends seemed inclined to believe the hostile interpretation of Ford as an acronym for “Fix or Repair Daily.” Since its government bailout, however, I’ve sworn off GM, despite the money…
Kevin Williamson thinks that President Obama’s proposed infrastructure bank is essentially the White House’s play to get in on the corrupt Congressional practice of earmarking (subscription required). The article’s worth a read, but this tangential paragraph is what caught my eye: Even though the extraordinarily productive service sectors of the U.S. economy create a lot…
How about a frightening assessment of our relationship with China: Why would China so brazenly challenge the world’s economic powers like this? Because the country’s leaders know what our leaders are only beginning to understand — that China would probably win a global trade war. It’s certainly worth reading Eric Weiner’s entire essay for the…
Since I took the time to argue, last month, that the slow pace of paying down debt, as compared with giving banks no choice but to write it off, means that a whole lot of debt has to be paid down to balance out each default. Michelle Singletary would say that I’m being too charitable:…
John Mauldin’s report from an economic conference in Texas doesn’t leave much room for optimism, with its first point being as follows: John Hofmeister is the former president of Shell Oil and now CEO of the public-policy group Citizens for Affordable Energy. He paints a very stark (even bleak, as he gets further into the…
Stephen Spruiell describes the “atypical” way in which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has handled ShoreBank, a Chicago-founded bank with a leftist lending bent. Apparently, “the FDIC relieved ShoreBank of its most toxic assets but left largely intact its management team — a highly unusual move” — and is not requiring an adjustment of…