We certainly weave a tangled web when we try to finance pro sports stadiums and universal medical care through public contributions — better known as taxes. In each case, in Minnesota, economists would be quick to critique proposals that seem…
Author: Ed Lotterman
Return to gold standard won’t work for a modern economy
David Stockman, a former congressman from Michigan and the boy-wonder director of the Office of Management and Budget for the first four years of President Ronald Reagan’s administration, kicked up a lot of dust with a recent op-ed in the…
Currency swap, BRICS bank are a tempest in a teapot
As an intro to a five-nation summit in South Africa, China and Brazil this week announced an agreement to swap their currencies to support trade between themselves if necessary in some future crisis. What does this actually mean, and why…
Emerging economies group is not a threat to the U.S.
The BRICS countries are having their summit in South Africa this week, and the early news raises questions for some. China and Brazil announced an agreement to swap their currencies, if needed, in case of some global crisis, to facilitate…
Water use rife with ‘trickle-down’ effects
In my grade school in Chandler, Minn., 50 years ago, we did not study economics or hydrology, but we understood inklings of both. “Flush twice, Edgerton has a water shortage!” we joked to each other in the bathroom. We knew…
Ignoring Cyprus would be a mistake
Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck may have been right to worry that “some damned fool thing in the Balkans” might trigger a Europewide war, but could some busted banks in Cyprus really trigger a global financial crisis? Or, to paraphrase…
Health care costs could be passed on
A few businesses have the power to raise prices without sacrificing much in quantity sold. Others have no price-setting power at all. And many in-betweens might have the administrative ability and legal right to raise prices, but doing so frequently…
Mergers good, mergers bad; it depends
Buyouts and mergers that have the potential to reduce competition continue apace in many sectors and at different levels. American Airlines is hoping to merge with US Airways, further reducing the number of choices for fliers. And the Canadian Pacific…
When a cartoon can be a problem
Seemingly intractable fiscal problems indicate that national institutions are failing us, be it government or media. It is a truism that whenever a nation has apparently unsolvable economic problems, these are only visible evidence of underlying political problems. This has…
This history is no guide for source of today’s budget problems
Be wary when anyone tries to read too much into a single historical incident. That was the case in Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson’s March 3 assertion that the 1964 “Kennedy tax cut” caused a litany of economic woes culminating…