Economics

Would you trust your life to U.S. government forecasts? The 2006 federal government fiscal year ended Sept. 30 with a deficit of $248 billion, which was $175 billion, or 71 percent smaller than that forecast by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in February of this year, a mere eight months earlier. The Clinton administration failed to predict the Read More ›

Would you be outraged if you knew your taxpayer dollars were being used to lobby for more government subsidies and higher taxes? Well you should be, because that is exactly what is happening. Over the years there have been many cases of government agencies lobbying Congress for more funds and/or higher taxes. As a result of earlier abuses, Congress prohibited Read More ›

GRAND CAYMAN, the Cayman Islands Turtle Farm. — If people were not allowed to own chickens and if chicken eggs and meat could not be legally sold, how many chickens would there be? The reason chickens, cattle, catfish, and goldfish are not endangered is because they are owned by private parties, bred and raised in captivity, and sold for commercial Read More ›

If you wanted to become really rich, yet at the same time help your fellow man, what would you do? There is no contradiction. The answer is — start a business — where you provide employment to others and also provide a new or improved good or service, or an existing good or service at a lower price. Thomas Edison Read More ›

Assume you were a graduate student trying to make as much money as possible during the summer. You obtain a job at a resort, and you ask the manager the maximum number of hours he will allow you to work. He says you can work seven hour shifts without a break other than for necessities, with 10 hours between shifts, Read More ›

ALPBACH, Austria. — They claim here that great mountains lead to great thoughts, and they even have a path named “The Thinkers Walk.” And indeed some of the greatest economic thinkers of all time did walk and enjoy the Austrian Alps. The Austrian School of thought produced two of the most influential economists of the 20th century, Ludwig von Mises Read More ›

The world’s bureaucratic elites, including the United Nations, are demanding that the rich nations spend 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product on development aid. This is more than $300 billion a year, or well over $3 trillion over the next decade. The demand for such huge funds is given as the main rationale for global taxes to be levied Read More ›

Many in the Washington establishment were shocked Aug. 17, when the Congressional Budget Office reported a surge of “unanticipated tax receipts” that will sharply push down this year’s deficit. Those who had been proclaiming the Bush tax rate cuts would result in a big reduction in tax revenues tried to hide their disappointment. It was tough being proved wrong again Read More ›

MIAMI, Fla. — The skyline appears to have more cranes than buildings, as if the city were just one vast construction site, and that has been the good news. The bad news here in Miami, as well as most major U.S. cities, is that the real estate boom of the last few years is coming to an end. The villain Read More ›

If you knew the U.S. government was going bankrupt primarily because of spending on Social Security and Medicare, and the only solutions were the following, which one would you pick? Doubling individual and corporate income tax rates. Immediately cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits by two-thirds. Immediately cutting all federal discretionary spending (including defense) by 143 percent. Reforming Social Security Read More ›