The Supreme Court cast a unanimous vote in favor of economic sanity this past week even if news of the oil spill and economic woes in Europe kept the media from paying much attention. Their 9-0 vote against the National…
Category: Other
Home price survey shows economy still sputtering
I hope the U.S. economy isn’t like my old Massey Ferguson 165 tractor. Last week, I began using it after it had been parked all winter. It fired up just fine at first. But once it had to work hard,…
How big is trade-off of jobs for regulation?
Some Americans are angered by increasing government intrusion in their lives. Would we be better off if we got rid of “job-killing OSHA?’” Remembering that suggestion in a comment posted to a news story made me crack a wry grin…
Regulation versus innovation? Need for trade-offs is evident
Improvements in medical devices, drugs and procedures are enormously important to society. Sixty years ago, my father died of a heart attack, leaving behind my mother, then pregnant with me, and my 18-month-old sister. Today a stent or an emergency…
Yes, jobs lost in seismic shifts don’t come back
A recent New York Times article on job conditions began by stating the obvious: ‘Many of the jobs lost during the recession are not coming back.’ The national unemployment rate began to rise from a low of 4.4 percent in…
What happens to the euro matters–a lot
Bullwinkle the Moose might call the $1 trillion euro intervention fund ‘antihistamine money’ since ‘it ain’t nothing to sneeze at.’ Give it to Henry Paulson, treasury secretary for George W. Bush, and he might think he had a bazooka in…
Gulf spill cancels out any irrational optimism for now
Suddenly, ‘drill-baby-drill’ enthusiasts are as rare as isolationists the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or a quasi-amateur day trader after the high-tech stock bubble of the 1990s burst. Proponents of drilling now are as lonely as a…
Why airline mergers always bring higher fares
Economists have a pretty good idea of the likely effects of the pending United-Continental airline merger. Such mergers of large companies in any industry with few players can have at least two effects, and Minnesotans already are familiar with both.…
Three names and a broken system
The fact that Barack Obama could name three people at one crack to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors shows how far the system envisioned in 1935 has broken down. Fortunately, neither these appointments nor ones made under similar circumstances…
Another inflation hawk is just fine
Under Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve adopted a policy of signaling any policy changes well in advance. So Wednesday’s steady-as-she-goes decision by the Fed’s key policy-making committee didn’t surprise anyone. Nor was Thomas Hoenig’s solo dissent any news; the Kansas…