Money, Where's the Money?. by Steve H. Hanke
Since September 2007, when the British Government and
the Bank of England bungled the Northern Rock affair, one government
after another has sent in the boy scouts in an attempt to douse what has
become an international economic wildfire. Their efforts haven't
worked. Indeed, they have often made matters worse — much worse — and
the fire remains uncontained.
Heads of state continue to rush from one meeting to the next.
Worryingly, they (and the army of pundits that follow them) continue to
focus most of their rhetoric on whether fiscal austerity or more fiscal
stimulus is the right strategy to contain the crisis and turn things
around. Instead, they should be focusing on the money supply. As history
shows us, money and monetary policy trumps fiscal policy.
Steve H. Hanke
is a Professor of Applied Economics at The Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.
More by Steve H. Hanke
In New Zealand, Farmers Don't Want Subsidies. by Mark Ross and Chris Edwards
Every five years or so, members of Congress from rural
areas team up to push through a costly extension of farm programs. They
are at it again this year. The Senate recently passed legislation to
keep billions of dollars in subsidies flowing to farm businesses, and
the House just passed a similarly bloated bill out of committee.
Farm bills are an inside game. Politicians never give the public a
good reason why U.S. agriculture needs to be coddled by the government.
Members of Congress focus on grabbing more subsidies for home-state
farmers, and they rarely discuss or debate whether all this federal aid
is really needed.It isn't needed. New Zealand's farm reforms of the 1980s dramatically illustrate the point. Faced with a budget crisis, New Zealand's government decided to eliminate nearly all farm subsidies. That was a dramatic reform because New Zealand farmers had enjoyed high levels of aid and the country's economy is more dependent on agriculture than is the U.S. economy.
Let Them Eat Hope. by Gene Healy
After much soul searching, Barack Obama has figured out where his presidency has gone wrong — and he shared it with CBS's Charlie Rose and viewers across the fruited plain Sunday morning.
"The mistake of my first term — couple of years," the president
allowed, "was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy
right." At times, Obama confessed, he'd forgotten that "the nature of
this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives
them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough
times." He needed to do "more explaining, but also inspiring.""Because hope is still there," the first lady added.
Obama Encouraging Americans to Get on Welfare
by Michael D. Tanner
PRINT PAGE
CITE THIS
The Obama administration clearly doesn't believe that enough Americans are receiving welfare.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius last week
issued an order giving the Obama administration greater authority to
waive work requirements included in the 1998 welfare reform law. This
comes on top of a new ad campaign, using Spanish-language soap operas,
to encourage more Latinos to sign up for food stamps.The administration even gave a special award to an Agriculture Department worker who found ways to combat the "mountain pride" discouraging Appalachian residents from taking full advantage of food stamps and other welfare programs.
Cheaper Credit Will Not Fix the Housing Market
by Mark A. Calabria
Continued weakness in the labor market has renewed
calls for an additional round of quantitative easing by the Federal
Reserve; that is the large scale purchase of assets, mostly treasuries
or agency (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) securities, with long maturities.
Such additional purchases would be a mistake as the impact on the labor
market would be minimal, potentially negative, and the long-run risks
to the Fed and the economy would be substantial.
Who Will Guarantee This Guarantor? Part Two
The director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation responds to an article on American.com.
The article prompted a thoughtful response from Josh Gotbaum, the director of the PBGC. His response follows, along with my additional comments:
How the Elites Built America’s Economic Wall
Illustration by Andrew Neyer
Economists have long taught this history to their undergraduates as an illustration of the growth theory for which Robert Solow won his Nobel Prize in economics: Poor places are short on the capital that would make local labor more productive. Investors move capital to those poor places, hoping to capture some of the increased productivity as higher returns. Productivity gradually equalizes across the country, and wages follow. When capital can move freely, the poorer a place is to start with, the faster it grows.
Let States Do the Tax-Collecting Dirty Work
By Amity Shlaes
That line from the New York Times columnist Bill Keller about state experiments involving President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act reflects a prevalent attitude: States that break away with original fiscal plans come up with subpar results that waste everyone’s time.
Photographer: Ben Baker/Redux
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario