Economy and Business
When Government Is Too Small
On a damp Friday morning, 11 days into the government shutdown, a few dozen truckers took to the Capital Beltway to tell lawmakers they were angry. They were protesting big government. Yet opinion polls showed that Americans opposed the government shutdown and were...
Gearing Up for Friday the 13th
It's been a long couple of weeks. Our government just wasted billions of dollars on a shutdown that accomplished nothing and dragged down economic growth as a close encounter with the debt ceiling loomed. And the deal that ended this impasse sets Washington up for...
How to Steer Our Rolls-Royce World onto a Smoother Road
The folks at Rolls-Royce have just opened a brand-new dealership — in the poverty-stricken Philippines. This nation of nearly 100 million people now hosts 334 deep pockets worth at least $50 million, more than enough, the Rolls-Royce CEO noted earlier this month in...
Spinning Failure into Gold
What amazing alchemists Wall Street bankers are! They can turn failure into gold and reform into business as usual. These sorcerers have pulled off both tricks right in front of us since their 2007 collapse. They turned that gross failure into an ongoing...
Worker Rip-Offs in the Reagan Building
How's this for irony? Ronald Reagan — worshipped as the supreme deity by small-government, anti-spending zealots — not only has a government office building in Washington named for him, but it's the biggest and costliest one built to date. The only face-saving factor...
Worse than Watergate
The U.S. Supreme Court is mulling a case that could end up giving America's wealthy a perpetual green light to contribute as much as they want directly to politicians and political parties. Credit Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama businessman who owns an electrical...
This Political Game Jeopardizes the Economy
Shortly before the first government shutdown in 17 years, President Barack Obama addressed the Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference in Washington. He said the same thing he's been telling the nation ever since, "We will not negotiate whether or not...
Subsidizing Economic Inequality
The debate over America's federal budget is getting stale — and getting us nowhere, as the latest government shutdown depressingly reminds us. Political obsession over budget deficits has now morphed into legislative extortion. Today, more than ever, we need to...
The New Operating System
Now that Wall Street Rules mankind, We need banks Of a different kind. It used to be the manufacturers who ran the country — steel, autos, appliances, and the like. The president of General Motors, Charles Wilson, is remembered best for having a comment he made...
The Fed’s Wizardry Isn’t Doing Much for the Rest of Us
The Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle called economics "the dismal science." He was only half right. Dismal, yes, but a science, no. Economics is more like a religion, in which reality is shaped by belief or blind faith. And, in the case of free-market zealots, it can...
