The recent report that the standard (U-3) rate of unemployment fell to 7.7 percent last month seems to have stirred considerable joy in Mudville. But before we spend a lot of time shouting huzzahs, we might well bear in mind a few other data and, of course, recall that not so long ago, a...
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The notion that the Second World War is responsible for ending the Great Depression has met growing skepticism among economic historians, thanks in no small part to the work of Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs. Beginning with an article that first appeared in the Journal of Economic History in 1992, Higgs has argued...
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When Paul Krugman starts attacking us, we know we’re doing something right. John Maynard Keynes’s presumptive heir, Krugman apparently doesn’t like the findings of our recent book edited by Research Fellow David Beckworth, Boom & Bust Banking: The Causes and Cures of the Great Recession, exposing the profound fallacies of Lord Keynes’s love affair...
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When the September unemployment figures were announced a month before the presidential election as having miraculously declined to below 8% for the first time since the current administration started, more than a few speculated that there may have been some book-cooking in the back room. In response, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, said she was...
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As a young woman, I took over a business that was bankrupt: its liabilities exceeded its assets by a considerable amount, and the wolf was well and truly at the door. Lots of people thought I was foolish not to “erase” its debts through filing bankruptcy and be given a “clean slate” by the...
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Most Americans are celebrating Labor Day with barbecues, picnics, and parades—but not the Chicago Teachers Union. They’re busy planning the city’s first teachers’ strike in 25 years, which incidentally coincides with the September 10 start of most Chicago Public Schools. Observers had hoped a strike could be averted when Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and...
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Over the years, I have heard many people say that the government’s adoption of a laissez-faire stance during a business recession or depression amounts to “do-nothing government”—the unstated assumption always being that it is better for the government to “do something” than to do nothing. Recommending such a hands-off stance is often described as...
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In late June Congress acted to freeze the interest rate on certain college loans at 3.4 percent for an additional year, claiming this move would help make college more affordable. Of course, a relative handful of college students saving a few dollars each month doesn’t translate into college affordability—and the Obama administration knows it....
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We are very pleased to announce the publication of our very timely, widely acclaimed, and compelling, new book on how to get beyond partisanship and special-interest politics to resolve one of biggest issues facing us today, Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis by our Research Fellow John C. Goodman. Dr. Goodman is the renowned, free-market,...
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It seems that push has come to shove in some California cities. The Stockton City Council voted to give its City Manager the green light to file for bankruptcy—which could address the problem of that city’s debt, now thought to be in the range of $25-40 million. The City’s diminished income is not up...
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