Creative destruction
One side effect of the foreclosure crisis: Many banks do not want to hold and pay taxes on run-down properties that no one will ever want to buy. So they are razing the decrepit buildings that plague...
View ArticleWhy is Wall Street supporting Obama?
Democrats are attacking Republicans as lackeys for Wall Street. President Obama has thrown his support behind the Occupy Wall Street protesters. He wants to pour on more regulations and restrictions...
View ArticleBeware of Greeks fearing gifts
The Greeks founded Europe, and now they may end it. And the vehicle for both is the same: Democracy. The European powers carefully crafted a deal to bail out Greece, forgiving half of their debt at...
View ArticleCan natural gas ignite the economy?
New technology is unlocking vast amounts of natural gas in the United States, enough to have a huge economic impact. Yes, it involves “fracking,” the controversial practice of pumping chemical-laced...
View ArticleJust printing more money
Historian Richard Striner proposes a solution for our economic woes: Using the monetary methods of Lincoln, updated to employ the inflation-fighting tools of the Federal Reserve, we could pay for a...
View ArticleAusterity vs. the Obama approach
Europeans are torn about the best approach to fix their messed-up economies: austerity (cutting government budgets and deficits) or stimulus (the government spending even more money and running up...
View ArticleThe Glass-Steagall myth
According to the left, the financial crisis was caused in large measure by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, making it possible for local commercial banks to make risky investments. Business &...
View ArticleEconomic stimulus as narcotic
Some business teachers and managing consultants still use their yellowed notes about Japan’s economic success, but that is way out of date. For decades, Japan’s economy has been in the doldrums. Why?...
View ArticleFrom risk-taking to risk-averse
Economics columnist Robert J. Samuelson says that the reason economic recovery is so slow in coming and the unemployment rate so high is a shift in the national psychology: We have gone from being an...
View ArticleDow makes up what it lost to reach record high
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached 14,253.77, a record high, going past the 14,198.1 it reached back in 2007, before the financial collapse. Does this mean the stock market, at least is fully...
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