Thursday, February 16, 2012

The Upside of Government Default

 

There is a good chance that the U.S. government will be forced to default on its explicit and implicit promises within the next few decades. Fortunately, the state government experience of the 1840s suggests that this may provide the best and most durable long-run solution.
Few now doubt that the U.S. government is rushing headlong toward a major fiscal crisis. An outright default by the U.S. government on Treasury securities looks increasingly likely. Most automatically conclude that such an outcome would be catastrophic. But one striking historical case, from the early history of the United States, dramatically contradicts this common presupposition. Indeed, it suggests that, in the long run, default can usher in such desirable results as decreasing government intervention and expanding prosperity. The case involves not the default of the national government but of several state governments in the 1840s.

How Taxing the Rich Harms the Middle Class

 

‘Rich corporations’ don’t pay taxes. Workers do.
President Obama’s budget speech on Monday expanded on the theme of economic “fairness,” like his State of the Union speech in January. He lectured Americans that if critical steps are not taken, the rise of the middle class will be threatened and disparities between the rich and the rest will continue to grow. A general theme was that taxing the rich would get us a long way towards reducing income inequality. This may be why President Obama failed to extend the promise he made last year to fight for corporate tax reform. Why lower tax rates on “rich” corporations if inequality is what really matters?

Bitter Sweet: How Big Sugar Robs You

 

That Valentine’s Day hand on your back pocket billfold is not your sweetheart’s, it’s the sugar lobby’s.
For decades, sugar beet and sugar cane farmers and processors have been the beneficiaries of a sugar program that stealthily drives up sugar costs—and, consequently, the cost of that heart-shaped box of chocolates. Over the past 30 years, the annual burden on U.S. consumers has averaged over $3 billion in higher food prices.

Blood Diamonds Are Mugabe’s Best Friend

 

The Kimberly Process has become a whitewash; Roger Bate reports from Africa.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa—Between 2000 and 2008, Zimbabwe collapsed.
The confiscation of white-owned farms precipitated the destruction of its economy; mad monetary policies led to the worst hyperinflation in Africa’s history; politically manipulated food distribution caused malnutrition; and, with woeful sanitation infrastructure, the already-weakened population succumbed to a cholera epidemic, plunging life expectancy to 35 years of age.

US: Growing risk posed by Iran-Venezuela axis – by Sen. Richard Lugar

The growing and deepening alliance between the mullahs of Iran and the America-bashing leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, poses a serious threat to U.S. national interests, but the Obama administration has been behind the curve in appraising these risks and forging effective policies to counter them.

US: Obama is America’s Lenin – by Jeffrey T. Kuhner

Why does President Obama despise Christianity? Recently, his administration ruled most religious organizations must provide health insurance to employees that covers free contraception and sterilization procedures — including the morning-after pill. The decision provoked a furor among Catholics and non-Catholics. They rightly understood that the contraceptive mandate violates religious freedom and the conscience rights of the Catholic Church.

US: That jobs thing sure didn’t last long – by Paul Driessen


President Obama “is focused like a laser on putting people back to work,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) assured us last fall — echoing repeated statements by President Obama and Administration officials who “can’t wait” for Congress or others to take action and create jobs.

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