Many years ago, in a book I’ve lost along the way (I believe it was A Primer on Social Dynamics), Kenneth Boulding described three basic ways in which a person, in the quest to get what he seeks, can approach other people. He can, as it were, say to them: (1) Do something nice...
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Further to my post, “Two Wolves and a Sheep,” a new poll out yesterday from The Hill disputes other polls showing a majority favoring taxing the rich more. According to The Hill’s poll, when asked the specific percentage “the rich” should pay, most provide a number lower than the current tax rate on the...
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December 7 marks seventy years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This incident finally broke the non-interventionist spirit that had characterized the American people—an attitude that was informed by the utter failure of the United States’s very costly entry in the last world war to bring about the democracy that was promised of...
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Dr. Brendan Brown, Head of Economic Research at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International (London), recently cited Senior Fellow Robert Higgs‘s work on regime uncertainty—both as the cause of the prolongation of the Great Depression as well as today’s economic malaise—suggesting that his premise could well be expanded to explain today’s global economy. In his Economic...
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I’m seeing a lot of press right now on negotiations to attempt to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling to prevent a default, which supposedly would occur on August 2. The story is getting much more ink than is warranted by its importance. First, I fully expect the debt limit to be raised so...
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I’ve been to a few economics conferences in Europe the past few months, and it has given me the opportunity to talk with some European economists about the Greek bailout. I only talked with a few people, and they were all economists, so I wouldn’t generalize to say they are representative, but I did...
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In a recent meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Obama “...pledged to cooperate fully in working through these issues, both on a bilateral basis but also through international and financial institutions like the IMF.” The US should stay out of Greece’s financial problems, for several reasons. First, the US is running budget deficits...
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Today is May 1, also known as May Day, the holiday of holidays for communists, socialists, and other such purported champions of the working class. (Personal disclaimer: I was once a member of the working class, and these champions never did a damn thing for me, unless you credit them with somehow contributing to...
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The devastating earthquake in Japan has damaged multiple nuclear reactors, and at least one of these facilities is said to pose the potential of Chernobyl-levels of contamination. Germany is responding to this tragedy by temporarily closing down seven nuclear reactors, while France, the second-largest user of nuclear energy in the world, is reportedly planning...
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Sixty-nine years ago, Japanese forces attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, provoking the United States to declare war against Japan. When Japan’s ally Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, the United States immediately reciprocated. These actions brought the United States into open warfare against the Axis powers and...
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