A nation of dog walkers: Where the jobs are — and are not

A nation of dog walkers: Where the jobs are — and are not

James Pethokoukis |

Some interesting factoids from today’s WSJ story on non-exportable (or non-tradable) jobs and those jobs machines can’t (yet) do such a home-health aide, personal trainer, and something called “nonfarm animal caretaker.” Here is the good news:

Read more »

The Costliest Regulation You’ve Never Heard Of

By Ike Brannon and Sam Batkins 

A proposed regulation could cost the U.S. banking system hundreds of billions of dollars, in turn costing our economy billions of dollars, and achieving no discernible benefits for banks, depositors, taxpayers, or the U.S. economy.

One of the costliest regulations to come down the pike of late has nearly managed to escape detection. Earlier this year, the Treasury Department published its “Guidance on Reporting Interest Paid to Nonresident Aliens,” which would require banks to report to the Internal Revenue Service the amount of interest they pay to non-resident aliens with a U.S. bank account. While the Treasury and the regulatory apparatus insist that the cost and inconvenience of adhering to this law are next to nothing, the reality is that this rule could cost the U.S. banking system hundreds of billions of dollars in lost deposits. In turn, this will cost our overall economy billions of dollars, while achieving no discernible benefits for banks, depositors, taxpayers, or the U.S. economy.

Read more »

The Healthcare Myths We Must Confront

By Cliff Asness 

As debate about whether ObamaCare is a good idea continues, rejecting four major misconceptions about healthcare is crucial to any chance of our eventually emerging with a better system.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ObamaCare decision, we must refocus. The Court’s decision was never about whether ObamaCare was a good idea, only about whether it was constitutional. The Court found a convoluted way to uphold the law.
That’s done, but the debate on whether ObamaCare’s provisions are good ideas will continue. To date, this debate has been unable to shake off a lot of mythology—things believed about healthcare and our healthcare system in general, or ObamaCare specifically—that simply are not so.

Read more »

By Michael R. Strain 

ObamaCare may be constitutional but it isn’t the answer. A refundable tax credit is.

The Supreme Court has just told us that ObamaCare’s mandate to buy health insurance is constitutional under the government’s taxing authority, but this decision will not settle the debate. Republicans have vowed to repeal and replace ObamaCare—and if Mitt Romney wins the presidency, they just might succeed. But Republicans have been vague about the replacement. Here’s a suggestion: Replace ObamaCare with a refundable tax credit funded by taxing employer-provided health insurance.

Read more »

Chávez’s Dangerous Liaisons with Tehran

By Roger F. Noriega 

U.S. diplomats have been silent on these growing alliances. However, fresh revelations about Chávez’s alliance with Iran demonstrate what he is capable of doing when he is not provoked.

Hugo Chávez admitted on June 13 that Venezuela is manufacturing Iranian drones and that Iran has built several explosives and chemical facilities in his country. However, Chávez is trying to throw international observers off his scent by acknowledging an unmanned aerial vehicle program for “peaceful purposes.” What  he did not disclose are the many other troubling aspects of the extensive military cooperation between the two rabidly anti-U.S. regimes—not the least of which is that Venezuela secretly shipped an F-16 to Iran in 2006 that could be used today to test the air defenses around Teheran’s illicit nuclear facilities.

Read more »

The Ghost of Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes Gets a Second Chance

By James V. DeLong 

The parallels between these New Deal laws, particularly the National Industrial Recovery Act, and ObamaCare practically write themselves.

Few commenters on the Supreme Court’s decision on ObamaCare accept that a legal thinker as sophisticated as Chief Justice John Roberts could really believe that the law should be upheld under Congress’s taxing power. In any case, if the Court was going to go baying off down the taxing power track, the issues needed much more analysis than the throw-away treatment they got in the course of the litigation.
So the question is, what was Roberts up to?

Read more »

Scalia’s Wise Dissent

By Lee Harris 

Critics of Justice Scalia’s dissent have lambasted him for his reference to Obama and have mocked his admission that his mind was ‘boggled’ by the government’s arguments. Yet none has addressed the heart of his quite powerful argument.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Arizona’s immigration law, I came across several liberal commentators who treated Justice Scalia’s dissent as if it were the ravings of an unhinged lunatic. Naturally, I expected a bit of bias on their part, and decided to look over Scalia’s dissent for myself. As I glanced over it, I was struck by the names of two long-dead European thinkers whom Justice Scalia cited, Samuel von Pufendorf and Emer de Vattel. This grabbed my attention. Why Vattel and Pufendorf, I wondered. Was Justice Scalia simply showing off his erudition or had his hatred of Obama driven him to find solace in musty old volumes of antiquated philosophical musings? At any rate, I was intrigued, and promptly began to examine Scalia’s argument, along with Justice Kennedy’s opinions and the dissents of Justice Thomas and Justice Alito. Eventually, after some reflection, I began to see what Justice Scalia was up to.

Read more »