In proposing changes to taxes on capital gains, President Barack Obama raised an important issue, in terms of both economic efficiency and societal fairness. The issue strikes home in Minnesota, where thousands of long-time shareholders of Medtronic face a huge…
Author: Ed Lotterman
Policy change has broad impact
The financial furor over the Swiss National Bank’s abrupt abandonment of fixing the value of the Swiss franc relative to the euro largely has died. The hedge funds whose managers made spectacularly wrong bets are being wound down. Swiss companies…
Swiss took least bad option on their franc
The Swiss central bank’s abrupt abandonment of its 3-year-old policy of fixing the value of the Swiss franc relative to the euro has gotten a lot of attention. It also has created a lot of confusion. That is understandable, since…
Free college for everyone has societal benefits
President Barack Obama traveled to Tennessee to propose that tuition at community colleges and most public vocational-technical schools be made free for everyone. Skeptics observe that this was empty grandstanding on his part, since there is no way the current…
Analysis yields gasoline tax insight
At 28.5 cents per gallon, the Minnesota gas tax is at its highest level ever, yet some politicians, mostly Democrats, and some business and farm groups want to raise it. Nearly all Republicans oppose any increase, with the leaders vowing…
Change remains the one constant
Economist Josef Schumpeter’s observation that capitalism is a process of “creative destruction,” was insightful. A market economy inherently engenders forces that create new ventures but destroy others. The sorts of incentives, and responses to them, that brought Intel, Microsoft and…
Impact of new Cuba policies limited
President Barack Obama’s re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba is a breath of good sense in an otherwise dismal phase in U.S. foreign policy. It will enhance U.S. standing, at least marginally, with many countries in this hemisphere, and in…
Falling oil prices have their down side
The global economy reminds me of a sardonic phrase I would hear in Vietnam 44 years go. If someone said, “The AO (area of operations) is in a dynamic state,” it meant that something important seemed to be going on,…
NFL acts as one would expect
ou can’t blame a guy for trying — or the National Football League for that matter. What this multibillion dollar nonprofit is trying for is all sorts of public largess in exchange for assigning the 2018 Super Bowl to Minnesota.…
Shale oil’s complex cost of production
Falling oil prices are throwing business news sources into a tizzy. Some of the stories about how lower prices will affect U.S. oil producers remind me of the old joke about the museum guard. When approached by a visitor who…