The Independent Institute’s Senior Fellow Robert Higgs has been taking on the so-called conventional wisdom that the U.S. economy continues to be in recessionary or near-recessionary conditions because “consumers are not spending”. On Friday, Dr. Higgs issued a challenge to readers of the Independent Institute’s blog The Beacon, as well as commentators and pundits,…
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In a very timely new article in The Weekly Standard, “The Ultimate Stimulus? World War Two and Economic Growth,” Arthur Herman refutes the Keynesian economics myth that Big Government spending during World War II ended the Great Depression. In so doing, he bases his analysis on the path-breaking work of Independent Institute Senior Fellow…
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One in seven Americans now receive food stamps. As yet another indicator of the utter absurdity of Keynesian economics, Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is claiming that food stamps (“Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program”) “mean more jobs” and provide “the most direct economic stimulus”. In the process, he somehow fails to mention that food…
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With the White House and the House of Representatives still at loggerheads over how to resolve the debt crisis, administration officials are turning up the heat, claiming that Washington has only two choices: increase the government’s borrowing capacity beyond the current $14.3 trillion limit or face a catastrophic U.S. Treasury default. If the latter…
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Despite not having taken any action to pass an annual budget for the United States government of any kind for almost two and a quarter years, it appears that the current majority Democratic Party in the Senate may finally have developed a blueprint for the federal budget, one that even promises to reduce the…
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Here is an excellent new video on the relationship between economic freedom and economic and social well-being. The freer a country is, the higher the quality of life and more happiness, including less poverty, more prosperity, longer life spans, cleaner environment, less corruption, lower child mortality, more civil liberties, and less unemployment. Freer countries…
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One of the common refrains we hear from people who want to focus on “fixing” the budget deficit by increasing federal tax revenues is that U.S. corporations pay less in income taxes than what businesses in other nations pay. But in focusing on just U.S. corporate income taxes, these people are ignoring a huge…
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In “CBO Releases Daunting Long-Term Outlook,” Tim Fernholz at the National Journal reports that: Increasing federal debt will be a growing burden on government action, crowding out lawmakers’ ability to adopt tax and spending priorities in good times and reducing flexibility during recessions, all while making a fiscal crisis more likely and hindering long-term…
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Terence Jeffrey reports at CNSNews.com that “China Has Divested 97 Percent of Its Holdings in U.S. Treasury Bills” over a 20-month period. Is this a major reflection of the increasingly precarious status of the U.S. dollar and U.S. government finances worldwide? China has dropped 97 percent of its holdings in U.S. Treasury bills, decreasing…
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What is the hidden cost that Americans are paying to have the U.S. federal government spend so much money? To answer that question, let’s take a closer look at when U.S. federal government spending really went out of control. Here, if we track the U.S. federal government’s spending [1] per U.S. household against median…
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