The Truth About Hedge Funds and the Financial Crisis
Editor’s Note: Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.Myth 1:Hedge funds are highly leveraged.Fact 1:The market exposure of most...
View ArticleJoe Bast on Whether R's or D's are Better for the U.S. Economy
Joe Bast, president of the Heartland Institute in Chicago, has two well-written and highly accessible thumbnail summaries of the economic policies of recent presidents in the last two issues of The...
View ArticleNuclear Power's Unchanging Plight
Just as congressional Republicans and the Obama administration had been pushing nuclear power, the disaster in Japan arrived to complicate matters. Proponents of atomic energy fear an unfair, crippling...
View ArticleThe Triumph of Politics Over Economics
At the very start of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, David Stockman debunked the myth that Reagan and the modern Republican Party were dedicated to small government.In 1981, the 35-year-old Stockman gave...
View ArticleAT&T, T-Mobile and a Maturing Wireless Industry
As AT&T is braces for a battle royale with regulators over its move to acquire T-Mobile from Germany’s Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion, it might be wise to remember that cellular phones, although...
View ArticleCBO's Take on the Obama Budget Confirms It's Just As Bad As You Thought
The Congressional Budget Office released its preliminary analysis of the President's proposed 2012 budget today, The verdict? It's a mess. Were the budget to be enacted as proposed, the federal...
View ArticleHow Drug Cops Go Bad
If you browse the website of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), you will notice a conspicuous theme: The war on drugs is corrupting America's cops.LEAP, a group of current and former cops,...
View ArticleFailing Upward in Criminal Justice
When the SWAT team came for Richard Paey in 1997, officers battered down the front door of the Florida home he shared with his wife and their two children. Paey is a paraplegic who uses a wheelchair...
View ArticleHey Congress! There are Consequences Down the Road
Over at Mercatus Center, Veronique de Rugy put together this frightening graph showing the projected composition of federal spending from 2010 to 2084 using data from the Congressional Budget Office’s...
View ArticleGovernment's Work Is Never Done
"When," humorist P.J. O’Rourke has asked, "can we quit passing laws and raising taxes? When can we say of our political system, ‘Stick a fork in it, it’s done’?... The mystery of government is not how...
View ArticleWhy a Sports Stadium Can't Save Baltimore (or Other Cities)
Okay, I admit I got caught by Marta Mossburg'ssatirical riff on Baltimore's economic development policies published in the Baltimore Sun on March 15th. I should have looked at the headline, which...
View ArticleStates Are Finally Turning Their Backs on Cigarette Taxes
After increasing cigarette taxes no fewer than 105 times in the last decade, it looks like states may finally be tiring of pounding smokers with higher rates every time budget trouble rolls around. The...
View ArticleJefferson Quotes on Debt and CBO's 2012 White House Budget Analysis
CBO's preliminary analysis of President Obama's budget proposal is out this month and it has a sharp critique: According to CBO's projections, if all of the President's budgetary proposals were...
View ArticleAmerica's Richest 10% Carry More of the Tax Burden Than Anywhere Else
One of the most popular (and powerful) fiscal conservative talking points when the President pushed to raise taxes on the wealthy last fall was that they already pay quite a bit. In 2009, for instance,...
View ArticleIs the Great Stagnation Real?
In his new book The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better, George Mason University economist and New York Times...
View ArticleObama's War of Choice
In December 2007 The Boston Globe asked 12 presidential candidates about military action aimed at stopping Iran from building nuclear weapons. "In what circumstances, if any," the Globe asked, "would...
View ArticleTime to Break Up Detroit (and Other Declining Cities)?
The City of Detroit has lost 25% of its population since 2000, the largest drop of any major city in the U.S. With just 713,777 residents, Detroit's population has fallen to a level not seen since 1910...
View ArticleA War We Don't Need
Contrary to pithy bumper-sticker truisms, war is occasionally the answer. But can anyone explain why it's the answer now? At the moment, at least, polls insist that Americans are generally supportive...
View ArticleDo Countries Where the Rich Pay More in Tax Also Have More Income Equality?
Yesterday I commented on the 2008 OECD study that shows the richest 10% of Americans pay more in tax, relative to their share of income, than anywhere else in the developed world. That story has been...
View Article2010 Highlights in State Government Privatization
Bacon's Rebellion In my last Bacon's column, I offered an overview of notable recent trends in local government privatization, and I'd like to continue that theme in this column by focusing on state...
View ArticleThe Rosy Scenario System
President Barack Obama is a budgetary optimist. When he announced his budget proposal last month, he framed it hopefully, as a welcome return to fiscal sanity and a path towards a better tomorrow. It...
View ArticleA Treasury GSE Management Failure
With taxpayers already shelling out $150 billion to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the government supporting 90 percent of the mortgage financing market, it's time for the Treasury Department...
View ArticleObama's Fatal Attraction to War
It's a good thing we didn't elect John McCain in 2008. A McCain victory would have meant an escalation in Afghanistan, a third war in the Middle East, and a president sending U.S. forces into harm's...
View ArticleEnd Corporate Welfare
In America today, the biggest recipients of handouts are not poor people. They're corporations.General Electric CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt is super-close to President Obama. The president named Immelt...
View ArticleNew at Reason: Treasury is Ignoring Their Legal Requirement to Approve or...
When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were given their charters, Congress required that the Treasury Secretary review and approve each issuance of debt by the GSEs. While there has been no change in the law,...
View ArticleHousing Market in Total Freefall
Housing numbers released in the past few days are almost all at their lowest level on record. Whether it is new or existing home sales, building permits, or prices, the housing market simply sucks. And...
View Article(Video) The Future of the American Dream and Housing Market
Last night, I appeared on RT to discuss the future of the housing market and how the American Dream is changing. See here for more on this week's dismal housing numbers.Also, see here for our paper on...
View ArticleNotes from the Underground
By 1962, Georgia State University historian John McMillian writes in his new book, Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America, corporate...
View ArticleHypocritical Bureaucrats Stifle Entrepreneurship in Colorado
Seven months ago the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) denied start-up firm Mile High Cab Company the right to compete in metro Denver’s taxicab market. According to David Migoya of The Denver...
View ArticleNew York City's Changing Economic Landscape
For most people outside of New York City, Manhattan is the iconic image of the urban life. An insightful article at NewGeography.com by David Giles, however, points to the organic complexity of this...
View ArticleObama's Consistency Problem
On Tuesday, three days after the U.S. launched military action against Libyan forces, President Obama got around to articulating a rationale for doing so."The core principle that has to be upheld...
View ArticleThe Truth About Nuclear Power
Editor’s Note: Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth.Myth 1: Nuclear power is a cheap alternative...
View Article7th Annual US P3 Infrastructure Forum
Reason is a co-sponsor of InfraAmericas’ 7th Annual US P3 Infrastructure Forum, which will be 14-15 June 2011 at The Grand Hyatt, New York. The theme is New Governors, New Legislators and New Market...
View ArticleBoston Globe Advocates for Taxi Deregulation
The Boston Globe (March 25, 2011) has come out in favor of deregulating taxicabs in Boston. Boston, like many large cities, uses "medallions" (permits to drive taxis) to limit the number of cabs that...
View ArticleSleeping Reagan Air Traffic Controller Shows FAA's Failures
The incident at Reagan National Airport in which two airliners landed after midnight without any assistance from the control tower illustrates a long-standing flaw with the Federal Aviation...
View ArticleSix Product Flameouts to Haunt Your Dreams
As Washington technocrats get hot and bothered by the growth of Google, Facebook and Apple, demanding more and more regulation as a check against their march toward inevitable Internet dominance, maybe...
View ArticleThe Fogh of War
Some people don’t know what country President Barack Obama was born in. I don’t know what country he’s president of.When he’s talking about trade agreements, Obama is as parochial as a UAW shop...
View ArticleCEA Chairs Highlight Importance of Tackling the Deficit
By now, you've probably already heard of yesterday's editorial on the national debt co-authored by ten former heads of the Council of Economic Advisors. In case you haven't, here's the...
View ArticleLost in Libya
He came slithering out of his hole on Wednesday, wearing his trademark skullcap and desert sarong, to declare that Libya is being attacked by “fascists,” something upon which he and Glenn Beck appear...
View ArticleWarren Buffett on Public Pensions
During a recent appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box," investor extraordinaire and "Oracle of Omaha" Warren Buffett discussed a wide variety of fiscal and economic issues. One of the topics Buffett...
View ArticleDoes Transit Spur Economic Development? Maybe "Yes," Maybe "No"
The Center for Transit-Oriented Development has published a report, Rails to Real Estate, on the potential economic development benefits of light rail. For a positive, pro-transit view of the study,...
View ArticleState of the State: Louisiana in 2011
This is the seventh of a ten-part series on the 2011 State of the State (SOTS) speeches in states with the ten worst projected relative budget deficits for FY 2012. Budget data is from the Center on...
View ArticleAn Aerial Tour of Honolulu's Rail Boondoggle
The web site HonoluluTraffic.com has a very useful and informative aerial tour of the "light" rail line envisioned for O'ahu. The tour traces the proposed rail line, which will be elevated, following...
View ArticleThe Canadian Model for Our Future?
The Atlas Economic Research Foundation recently announced the winner of its Sir Antony Fisher Award as a new book lauding the Canadian economic model as the way of the future: The Canadian Century:...
View ArticleCA Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher Co-Authors Budget Reform Bill
California Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (R-San Diego) has co-authored a new budget reform bill intended to bring greater accountability and sense to the budgeting process. Senate Bill 14 (see the...
View ArticleWisconsin, Unions, and Collective Bargaining
It seems the public-sector union collective bargaining issue is far from over in Wisconsin or the rest of the country. Legal wrangling continues over whether or not the law passed by Republican...
View ArticleObama and the Ghost of '68
In 2008, Democratic voters had their pick of many candidates for president—from Hillary Clinton to John Edwards to Joe Biden. Why did they choose Barack Obama?After all, he had less experience in...
View ArticleBanks Start Limiting Debit Card Programs, Time for a Durbin Swipe Fee Watch
We are going to start a Durbin Amendment of Consumer Benefits Watch. The limits on interchange fees (aka swipe fees) built into the Dodd-Frank law are bound to have significant impact on the banks...
View ArticleThe Next Barrage in Housing Finance Reform Battle
House Republicans are finally moving forward with legislative action on reducing the government's role as primary supplier of mortgage finance. The first step will be to start moving a series of...
View ArticleJapan's Nuclear Nationalism
Nuclear advocates are dismayed that radiation fears over Japan’s Fukushima plant might kill an industry that has a better safety track record than virtually any other. But the public in Japan and...
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