Economy

Don’t Overlook This Part of the Story

By Justin Katz | October 19, 2008 |

It doesn’t pass judgment upon nor level recriminations against Regino Romero — who appears to be doing his best to support his family and do right by his children — to note an easily ignored and often dismissed piece of his story (emphasis added): If money were not so tight, Regino Romero would use the…

People resort to “moral equivalence” arguments when they don’t have the facts on their side

By Donald B. Hawthorne | October 17, 2008 |

David Boaz of the Cato Institute shreds more illogical thinking by the Left: Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post has a column titled “Gods That Failed.” He’s referring to a famous book: In 1949, a number of famous writers, among them Arthur Koestler, André Gide, Richard Wright, Stephen Spender and Ignazio Silone, wrote essays explaining…

The Wisdom of Joe the Plumber

By Marc Comtois | October 16, 2008 |

Google “Joe the Plumber”: you’ll get 1,953 news articles, like this. For those who don’t know, Joe Wurzelbacher had this conversation with Senator Obama last weekend: Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed “more and more for fulfilling the American dream.”…

Redistributing Your Own Earnings Back to You

By Marc Comtois | October 16, 2008 |

Last night, Barack Obama stated: I think Exxon Mobil, which made $12 billion, record profits over the last several quarters, they can afford to pay a little more so that ordinary families who are hurting out there, they are trying to figure out how they are going to afford food, how they are going to…

On Obama’s economic and tax policies

By Donald B. Hawthorne | October 13, 2008 |

From TaxProfBlog, with H/T to Instapundit: Hundreds of economists (including Nobel Prize winners Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott, and Vernon Smith) have signed letters opposing Barack Obama’s economic and tax plans (here, here, and here): We are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor income and investment. His…

Argument by Example

By Justin Katz | October 10, 2008 |

John’s comment to my “Not a Trick Question, but Close” post is well worth a read: Let me use a real life, real RI example to rebut your argument. Let’s assume that your theoretical factory owner in fact owned a jewelry factory. Now let’s look at what happened to his economics over the past decade.…

Trying Different Things unto Socialism

By Justin Katz | October 10, 2008 |

Yeah, I gotta vote “no” on this one: Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials. Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the…

Today’s Peculiar Statement on RI Future

By Justin Katz | October 8, 2008 |

Even beyond the implicit suggestion that a change of the credit score system ought to be imposed, it’s very clear from the following that Matt Jerzyk and Co. see the world very differently than I do at the basic level of the brain’s first impressions: Shouldn’t there be some kind of financial reward for those…

Partisan Spin, or Something Else?

By Justin Katz | October 6, 2008 |

Does Froma Harrop even try to understand the other side? A couple of columns ago, she laid the entire economic crisis at the feet of Phil Gramm, and now, she dismisses a contrary explanation by reducing it to one component: ACCOMPLISHED GOOGLERS can probably find the original talking points off which dozens of conservatives have…

Why blaming the current financial turmoil on “greed” doesn’t work

By Donald B. Hawthorne | October 4, 2008 |

Once again, Don Boudreaux, a George Mason University economics professor, cuts to the chase: …[the] explanation of the current financial turmoil — as being caused by “greed” — is inadequate…Saying that “greed” caused today’s problems is like saying that gravity caused the death of someone pushed from the top floor of the Empire State building.…