Weekly Economics Lesson: The Problem Is Spending, not Deficits

The Wall Street Journal has a column identifying fiscal deficits as the greatest threat to European economic performance. As this passage indicates, many European nations have enormous deficits and debt, much larger than the United States: Excessive euro-zone deficits now present one of the biggest risks to the global recovery. Several European countries – Greece, [...]

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Weekly Economics Lesson: The “Sugar High” of Easy Money

Steve Pearlstein of the Washington Post has a common-sense column warning about the dangers of the Fed’s easy-money policy. It is possible, to be sure, that the Fed will withdraw (or “soak up”) all this liquidity as the economy recovers, but all the signs suggest that the central bank is kowtowing to the politicians and [...]

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Weekly Economics Lesson: High Taxes Are a Recipe for Reduced Competitiveness

Politicians understand the economic impact of taxation when it serves their interests. They often brag about raising tobacco taxes to discourage smoking. It’s not their business to dictate private behavior, of course, but they are right about higher taxes leading to less smoking (they also lead to more cigarette smuggling, but that’s a separate issue). [...]

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Weekly Economics Lesson

While doing research for an upcoming video, I found an excellent study from the National Center for Policy Analysis that explains how “third-party payer” is largely preventing markets from operating in health care. Government policies (including tax distortions) are the cause of the problem, yet the polticians want to expand third-party payments. Here’s an excerpt [...]

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Government-Mandated “Fairness” Means Unaffordable Health Insurance

As part of so-called reform, the crowd in Washington is seeking to impose policies to bring “fairness” to the market for people who purchase their own health insurance. Yet these policies – community rating and guaranteed issue – have led to a disaster for families seeking health covereage in New York. The obvious lesson is [...]

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The Hidden Cost of Government Intervention

Alex Pollack of the American Enterprise Institute explains how even supposedly benign interventions have negative effects. Using deposit insurance as an example, he explains how the benefits of intervention are often obvious, but the costs are usually hidden and indirect – and generally of a greater magnitude. The politicians get applause for the supposed benefit [...]

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Real Story on Minimum Wage Is that Union Bosses Are Intentionally Harming Teenagers

The Wall Street Journal rightfully complains about government-imposed minimum wage laws, which are causing higher levels of teenage unemployment. But an underappreciated aspect of this story is the role of union bosses. The unions are big advocates of higher minimum wages, ostensibly because they want to help the working poor, but the real reason is [...]

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