The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ended its recent confab in Brazil with pious warnings that limited access to new information technology is a major impediment to closing the income gap between rich and poor nations. This is…
Category: Other
It’s difficult to withdraw from financial addiction
News about subsidies for airlines and the U.S. cotton industry illustrate how addictive unsustainable or indefensible flows of money turn out to be. Once a company, group or economic sector becomes used to above-market income of some type, stopping the…
Lessons for confronting monopolies
The U.S. government may be learning a lesson in dealing with monopolies that smaller nations such as Canada and the Netherlands have known for years. That is if the opinions of Air Force Secretary James Roche make it past the…
Presidential pressure on the Fed
De mortuis nil nisi bonum. The Latin injunction to speak nothing but good of the dead is sound advice. It should not justify, however, the complete falsification of history. That is what former Reagan economic adviser William Niskanen tried to…
Take the long view of leader and economy
Pundits evaluating the late President Ronald Reagan’s economic accomplishments should heed the perspective of Chou En Lai, Mao Tse Tung’s longtime aide. When a question arose on the effects of the French Revolution on world history, Chou suggested, “Perhaps it…
Price of war not equal for all nations
News coverage of the 60th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy has focused a lot of attention on the personal experiences of those who fought and sacrificed in those battles. It would be useful if we gave similar attention…
Much to learn on a walk in the Woods
July will mark the 60th anniversary of the Bretton Woods conference that did more to shape the world than any other meeting after Versailles. Agreements made at Bretton Woods influence the lives of billions of people. Few, however, know what…
Need, greed defeat good sense
Who would ever fall for such a scam? That is my reaction every time I receive an e-mail from someone in Nigeria asking my help in transferring millions in unclaimed funds to the United States. I have the same reaction…
A quick primer on the Federal Reserve
The U.S. Federal Reserve System has what is perhaps the most complicated structure of any central bank in the world. The degree to which informed, intelligent citizens are confused by this complexity showed up in responses to a recent column…
Compensation has complications
New York Attorney General Eliot Sptizer’s lawsuit against former NYSE chief Richard Grasso is making business headlines nationally. Spitzer wants to force Grasso to return much of the $187 million compensation package Grasso engineered for himself. In Minnesota, much attention…