Okay gang, only a few shopping days left to make this the biggest grossing holiday in the history of capitalism. And so far, so good. Running the numbers in mid-December, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, predicted this year’s Christmas...
POLITICS
Betrayal of the Struggle
Last month, when Rosa Parks was laid to rest in Detroit, her eulogy contained well-deserved praise for her brave defiance of segregation laws that led to the 1955 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott and later the 1956 Supreme Court ruling that banned public transportation...
The Media’s War
The media seem to have come up with a formula that would make any war in history unwinnable and unbearable: They simply emphasize the enemy’s victories and our losses. Losses suffered by the enemy are not news, no matter how large, how persistent, or how clearly...
Leave Our Borders Open!
It is impossible to seal America’s 19,857 miles of borders. But to gain a few votes and look “tough,” politicians today have no qualms against throwing money at an impossible task. But it would be wrong to seal our borders, even if we could, beyond a...
The “Windfall Profits” Smear
Politicians and pundits claim that oil companies’ recent quarter of higher profits is mostly a “windfall”–which should be “given back” to society via a proposed $20 billion tax. As Representative Dennis Kucinich and others say, they...
French Jacques Chirac’s New World Order Crumbles
A year ago, French President Jacques Chirac set out the core of a new strategic vision that would exclude the United States in favor of a European realignment with China. “Reasons of international balance justify strengthening links between Europe and China,...
Heavyweight Books
Too many people don’t read any books at all and some read only books with lots of pictures and simple words. However, at the other end of the spectrum, there are people who think nothing of digging into books that run into multiple volumes. This column is for...
Mind-Changing Books
From time to time, readers ask me what books have made the biggest difference in my life. I am not sure how to answer that question because the books that happened to set me off in a particular direction at a particular time may have no special message for others...
Gas Prices and Price Controls
With all the recent hype and demagoguery about gasoline price-gouging, maybe it’s time to talk about the basics of exchange. First, what is exchange? Exchange occurs when an owner transfers property rights or title to that which is his. Here’s the essence...
Christmas Reading
My annual list of books to recommend as Christmas presents is led by the clearest front-runner in years: “1776” by David McCullough. There was a time when the very mention of 1776 struck a responsive chord in Americans, as the year in which their...
Oil Company Profits and The Senator From Windfall
Of all the politicians complaining about the profits and practices of America ‘s wicked oil companies, few can top Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). Among her latest ventures is a demand that the oil company executives who testified Nov. 9 be brought back to the...
The Unlearned Lesson of Enron–4 Years Later
Four years ago this month, Enron Corporation–number 7 on the Fortune 500–filed for bankruptcy, culminating a collapse that shocked America. It is commonly believed that Enron fell because its leaders, eager to make money, schemed to bilk investors. The...
How To Prevent Confiscatory Taxation: Cut Spending to Save Needed Tax Cuts
If you say, “I have good news and bad news,” people usually ask for the good news first. So here’s the good news: Our economy is growing, easily outpacing the tepid performance of other industrialized nations. Unemployment, according to the Labor...
Random Thoughts: November 2005
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Bumper sticker in Berkeley: “Animals are little people in fur coats.” My tastes must be behind the times. When I see women in “before” and “after” advertisements, I often think they looked...
McJobs: Dead End Jobs?
Certain jobs are derisively referred to as “burger flipper” or “dead-end” jobs. I’d like someone to define a dead-end job. For example, I started out as a professor of economics at California State University, Los Angeles and then at...
What’s in a Name?
People have always sought distinctions but the ways they have tried to distinguish themselves have varied widely. Some have let their achievements speak for them but others have let their clothes, their tattoos, their pierced body parts, or just their loud and...
Senate Hearings on Energy Prices: Putting the Squeeze on Big Oil
Who can resist good theater? Certainly not American lawmakers. All the pieces were in place on Nov. 9, as the Senate held hearings about the soaring price of energy. The CEOs of the five largest oil companies were the guest stars, called in to endure lectures from a...
Three Huge Automatic Tax Increases — Courtesy of Congress
The first rule in government, as in medicine, is the Hippocratic one: Do no harm. Unfortunately, Congress is about to do severe harm to the U.S. economy if it fails to act in the next few months to stop three huge automatic tax increases. Let me shift metaphors. The...
“The New White Flight”
“The New White Flight” was the title of an eye-opening article in the November 20th issue of the Wall Street Journal. It was about a high school in Cupertino, California, where a growing Asian American student population is causing rising academic...
President Bill Clinton is Wrong on Pragmatism
“Sooner or later you figure out that pragmatism and compromise are principles in a democracy. It’s not selling out your convictions.” This, according to former President Bill Clinton in a major speech several days ago. President Clinton is wrong....
Human Organs for Sale?
The organ-transplant tragedy at UC Irvine Medical Center, where according to the Los Angeles Times “more than 30 people died awaiting liver transplants . . . as the hospital turned down scores of organs that might have saved them,” illustrates the terrible...
French Family Values Revisited
Princeton University professor and columnist Paul Krugman deservedly won Forbes.com’s “Dunce of the Week” award for his New York Times column “French Family Values” (July 29, 2005). Krugman asks, “But are European economies really...
Terrorists and Banning Torture
Some people seem to see nothing between zero and infinity. Things are either categorically all right or they are categorically off-limits. This kind of reasoning — if it can be called reasoning — is reflected in the stampede to ban torture by Congressional...
Palestinians Taste a Dose of Their Own Medicine
A suicide bombing in Hadera, Israel, on October 26 that killed five people inspired the usual Palestinian joy: some 3,000 people took to the streets in celebration, chanting Allahu Akbar, calling for more suicide attacks against Israelis, and congratulating the...
How To Cure Inflation
Last month, President Bush nominated Dr. Ben S. Bernanke, currently chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, as chairman of Federal Reserve Board to replace the retiring Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan’s replacement comes at a time of...
Price Controls
I first became aware of the law of gravity as a small child when I pedalled by tricycle off the porch and crashed into the yard. Gravity was of course operating all along, whether I was aware of it or not. Economics is a lot like that. Many people who are completely...
Defining Gasoline Price ‘Gouging’
A newspaper headline — “Lawmakers Struggle to Define Gasoline Price ‘Gouging'” — shows how phony the current Congressional jihad against the oil companies is. “Price gouging” is one of those phrases that evoke strong emotions...
What Causes Unemployment?
Many people are blaming the riots in France on the high unemployment rate among young Muslim men living in the ghettoes around Paris and elsewhere. Some are blaming both the unemployment and the ghettoization on discrimination by the French. Plausible as these...
The Rest of the Story on Paul Harvey: Still Panning For Gold After 87 Years
“May I have your undivided for just a moment,” veteran radio newsman Paul Harvey will say, before announcing what “this day’s news of most lasting significance” is. As Harvey frequently notes, it probably isn’t found on the front...
Jarhead: Heroes Do Not Exist
In 1987, Time magazine ran an infamous cover that consisted of a marine in his dress blue uniform–with a blackened eye upon his face. The cover was intended to depict the shame befallen the marines after the Clayton Lonetree spy scandal and it was met with...
Global Warming, Melting Ice Caps and Rising Sea Levels
One of the great fears generated by global warming is that the ocean is about to rise and swallow our coasts. These concerns have been heightened by the substantial uptick in Atlantic hurricane activity that began in 1995. The frequency of really strong storms...
Interview: Dan Yergin on Energy Prices and Policies
James Glassman: Energy prices have been rising sharply, partly because of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. We decided to talk to probably America’s number one expert on energy to try to separate some of the hysteria and the myths from the truth. Dan Yergin...
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