There is already disappointing drift from Republican Congressional leadership that the privatization of Fanne Mae and Freddie Mac must be delayed or at least phased in over a longer period because of the anticipated impact on available housing finance that would result from a precipitous removal of what is, in effect, a government-subsidized floor on […]

Ideas abound on what initiatives should be pursued to restore American economic prosperity.  A significant by-product of the election is that a much broader range of options will be heard and hopefully, the discrediting of sound fiscal policies that has dominated the dialogue will cease and desist.  Contrary to popular wisdom and the Democratic spin […]

Recently I had the opportunity to participate as a panelist in a conference sponsored by the Texas Lyceum Association to explore the “problems, issues, challenges, ventures, and goals that the state of Texas should be pursuing in the public sphere”.  In a couple of hours, five of us and a moderator conducted a fairly spirited […]

David Brooks recently outlined his view of competing visions of economic growth and vitality.  He named them the Moon Shot Approach and the Unleash America Approach, the former being of the “industrial policy” persuasion, with government induced and directed enabling of economic development through infrastructure, tax credits, and subsidies, and the latter being more a […]

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.  It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.–Mark Twain Nobel economist Paul Krugman is the poster boy for Twain’s quote, but it runs in the ideological family as well.  Krugman, of course, is a primary leader of the steady drumbeat for more […]

Well, that remains to be seen, but maybe.  Just maybe the European Union has realized that this crisis has brought them very close to failure and that it ain’t over yet.  Maybe they are sufficiently shocked into strictly enforcing the sanctions that are the conditions for the Greek bailout, which look pretty comprehensive.  And maybe […]

As the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill nears a vote in the U. S. Senate, it is difficult to fully understand its mission.  Supposedly, we are responding to the “big culprit” in the recent meltdown, which has been identified as the deregulation of the financial markets over the past 30 years or so, in spite of […]

Every pundit, regardless of their qualifications, has an opinion on who is responsible for the worldwide financial  meltdown of 2008 and how to fix the problem.  The majority of these fixes involve two elements–more government regulation and the early detection and prevention of “systemic risk”.  Each of these assume that there exists a mechanism by […]

We just thought we had buried forever with the Carter presidency the notion of “industrial policy”, a kind of Japanese MITI-like concept of government direction of major elements of the economy, with various aspects of “investment” in favored industries and the selection of winners to receive subsidies and targeted tax incentives.  Well, guess again.  The […]

Conversation abounds as to the chances that we are moving out of the recession and on our way to a robust recovery.  But the downer in these discussions is the continuing increase in unemployment rates and absence of any evidence of growth in job creation.  No surprises here.  As Robert Barro and Charles Redick remind […]