Economy Recovering Too Fast?
There a lot of concern going around right now that the stock market recovered too fast. Since the Dow and S&P bottomed out in March, Wall Street has seen a rapid recovery not experienced since the...
View ArticleThe Madness of the Mandate
Over the summer, the health-care debate focused on the controversy over the so-called "public option"—a government-run insurance plan intended to offer a low-cost alternative to private insurers. But...
View ArticleVirginia Unnecessarily Mingles Politics and IT
Unfortunately for Old Dominion taxpayers, Virginia’s 10-year, $2.3 billion IT outsourcing contract has become a political football being tossed among increasingly adversarial Democrats and Republicans,...
View ArticlePresident Obama's Plan to Help Consumers Will Hurt Them
Reason.com When I first learned to drive as a teenager, my mother let me take the wheel on trips to the local grocery store. She was there in the passenger seat, arms flailing every time a squirrel or...
View ArticleDon't Blame Voters for California's Budget Woes
The Wall Street Journal With the Golden State still struggling to balance its books, politicians from both sides of the aisle have come up with a nifty way to avoid responsibility for the mess: Blame...
View ArticleGovernment Streamlining, Fiscal Stewardship Prompts Upgrade of Louisiana's...
Notwithstanding concerns about how ratings agencies have handled Wall Street firms and certain financial products (see Anthony's earlier post), the Big Three rating agencies remain a good and useful...
View ArticleTaxi Regulation Leads to Corruption
I weigh in on the intended and untended impacts of restricting the supply of taxi in cities in a commentary for Sunday's Washington Post. When cities limit the supply of taxis, they create powerful...
View ArticlePrivatization News Roundup, 10/11/2009
Some privatization news highlights from the last week that haven't been covered elsewhere on the blog:FEDERAL"Feds âIn-Sourcingâ Could Hurt N. Va. Economy,"Burke Connection"DHS announces...
View ArticleAmid Budget Woes, Governments Turn to Technology to Drive Streamlining
Steve Lohr at The New York Timeswrites today that the pressure to solve state and local fiscal crises may be prompting a fresh look at how technology can drive government streamlining and...
View ArticleThrough Privatization, Indy Seeks Funds for Infrastructure Program
Francesca Jarosz at the Indianapolis Startakes a deeper look at Indy's current large-scale privatization initiatives today in an interesting article. In addition to tapping privatization to modernize...
View ArticleThree Guiding Principles for Reforming Wall Street
In the wake of the massive bank bailouts, nearly everyone is calling for some kind of financial regulatory system overhaul. The Obama administration has outlined what it would like to see and Congress...
View ArticleNew At Reason: Three Guiding Principles for Reforming Wall Street
In a new commentary posted today, I argue that if Congress makes choices on political criteria alone, reforms are likely to damage the country’s economic recovery. Instead, there are three guiding...
View ArticleOstrom, Williamson Win Economics Nobel Prize
Political economist Elinor Ostrom and economist Oliver Williamson have won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics. Both were recognized for their work in using economic analysis to understand the...
View ArticleIn Need of Cash, Britian Puts Chunnel Up For Sale
In April, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistar Darling, the U.K.'s finance minister, announced that our cousins across the pond were planning to use asset sales to raise funds, given their economy is in...
View ArticleElinor Ostrom on the Market, the State, and the Third Sector
When economists show that market arrangements fail, they usually make the simple recommendation that “the” state should take care of these problems. Elinor Ostrom has demonstrated empirically that...
View ArticleHow Long to Solve Funding Crisis in Public Pension Systems? Try "Infinity."
David Cho has an excellent article in the Washington Post today on the looming crisis in state and local public pension system funding that should be required reading for fiscal hawks. Reason...
View ArticleWhen It Rains, It Pours--Part 2
Following up on this recent post, the news on the state budget front continues to look bleak. Here's a sampling of some recent news:Pennsylvania: Well, it was only 101 days overdue, but Pennsylvania...
View ArticleA Review of "Capitalism: A Love Story"
The basic point of Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story is that economics is evil, a system that takes from the 99% of society and gives to the 1% who are wealthy, and it needs to be taken down by...
View ArticleCioffi-Tannin Trial Begins Today
The trial for Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, managers of the two failed Bear Stearns hedge funds that wound up bringing down the investment giant, begins today:Cioffi and Tannin stand accused by the...
View ArticleHigh Speed Rail News Links
The American Dream Coalition has culled the nation's media outlets for the latest news on high-speed rail:Will Obama's High-Speed Rail Plan Become a Subsidy for Freight Railroads?– Ron Utt, HeritageThe...
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