Forget for the moment the merits economically or socially of the current proposals for the health care reform bill(s) wending its way through Congress, lets talk only about the administration of the new program and the agencies created by the proposed bill.  It is not for nothing that the Washington executive branch and administrative departments [...]

Supply Side Economics From Centuries Ago

With all the bailouts and Stimulus money floating around and the unimaginable amounts of money printed by the Fed being injected into our economy there is renewed debate about the best way to turn our economy around.  Many, especially those in the current administration, tout the idea that we need to keep pouring on the [...]

Health Care And Too Big To Fail

Since last fall we have had a great deal of discussion and debate concerning the phrase of too big to fail (TBTF) which was a newly coined term created seemingly just for this current economic mess.  That concept led to the TARP; it also produced the TALF program, remember that?  Likewise, a substantial portion of the [...]

2 Cents For These?

The following are worth what you paid for them but the asking price is still 2 cents per each as they say on the loading docks.
When you have spent an hour on the tarmac with no word from the cockpit about take off or pulling up the the gate, you wonder if those pilots were [...]

King Dollar and Diplomacy

This is not a polemic on politics but rather a discussion about economics, numbers and the international relations and effects of the US currency and its perceived worth around the world.    In the Wall Street Journal and other economic news outlets there has been substantial discussion of recent days about the decline of the dollar [...]

D. C. –Central Command and Control For Economy

The progressive march toward D. C. controlling greater portions of our economy has been moving steadily forward since the time of FDR.  There have been a few short eras of retrenchment but the floodgates were opened when the Supreme Court adopted a “no limit” on the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution in the ’30’s.   [...]

Health Care Reform and the Constitution

It is amazing to hear so many politicians making proposals in both the House and the Senate regarding health care reform without even a passing nod to the Constitutional authority of Congress to enact such legislation.  I know the idea of Federalism and the Constitution must seem quaint and old fashioned to many of them [...]

Market Direction–Through A Glass Darkly

Predicting the directi0n  of the stock market and the economy is both an art and a science.  Even those like Bernacke who have made a career of studying past markets only do so to enhance their ability to project what is around the next corner in the market.   The exalted one here can’t claim any [...]

Stimulus Spending and 1983

Quite often in the last several weeks defenders of the administration’s stimulus plans, bank and auto takeovers, cap and tax and health care reform have made references to how our economy was in 1983.  They especially use the data regarding unemployment from that time to justify the current policies and proposed policies.    Inflation was still high [...]

Left Lies About Health Care

The air is thick these days with cross currents of accusations that one side or the other is telling lies about the pending HR 3200 health care reform bill.  Again you are all urged to read at least some portion of it for yourself.  You can google it.   The phrase “death panels” is tossed about [...]