Tag Archives: economy

The Ricochet 200th Podcast: The Larger Meaning | Ricochet.com | 01.26.14

As all Ricochetti know, tonight James, Peter, Rob and many more will have themselves a 200th Ricochet podcast. The golden voices and lively wits will record live at the Town and Gown Ballroom on the University of Southern California campus in downtown Los Angeles. One of the organizers tells me that the audience may exceed […]
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Is Money Too Easy…or Too Tight? | Ricochet.com | 01.11.14

Last week, I posted a summary to a New York Times op-ed by financial crisis expert Peter Wallison (“Nightmare on Elm Street: A Picture of the New Housing Bubble”). Wallison had argued that a new housing bubble was developing.  I included with my summary a chart that he circulated privately to back up his claim. In a comment […]
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Economic Canaries – and Obamacare is the Cat | HughHewitt.com | 08.22.13

Just as the Washington Establishment is trumpeting the economy’s revival, an alarming other story is gaining traction.  It isn’t a new edition of the headline grabbing “end to the stimulus” tale.  Instead, it is of obscure financial data that may be signaling bad time ahead – and pointing to a cause.  Call it the canary […]
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The Crisis In Entrepreneurial Finance: The Death of ‘Liquidity Event’ IPOs | HughHewitt.com | 08.04.13

Why are the American economy and the number of American jobs growing so slowly?  A few days ago, I stumbled on one answer.  And for once, it didn’t have to do – or, at least, much to do — with economy’s mismanagement by the current administration. As part of a swing through California, I spent […]
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The Buck Stops Somewhere Else | USNews.com | 07.26.13

Haven’t we seen this act before? This week, President Obama denounced Republicans in Congress who were trying, he said, to destroy Obamacare by mucking up its implementation. You’ve got to admire the president. A man of many gifts – intellectual, rhetorical – but none of his gifts matches that of passing blame. Harry Truman may […]
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President Obama’s Clueless Economics | HughHewitt.com | 07.25.13

Yesterday President Obama delivered a much-heralded (by himself and his minions) speech on the economy. It was a transparent attempt to change the Washington topic from, as he put it, “phony scandals”. Phony scandals?  Let’s see.  Could he have been referring to the White House-ordered IRS audits of the Administration’s political opponents, precisely the same […]
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President Embraces Flat Earth Science… and Economics | HughHewitt.com | 06.26.13

Yesterday President Obama joined the Flat Earth Society. That’s not how he put it, of course.  Just the opposite.  He said, “We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society,” i.e. those not prepared to join him in embracing radical anti-fossil fuel policies. Put another way, he meant forget about Congress.  Congress […]
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What is the Greatest Force Shaping Our Age? | Ricochet.com | 06.25.13

On the front page of Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, two unrelated articles pointed to a greater story. The first concerned a 15- or 16-year-old factory girl in Bangladesh. Her name was Mahinur Akhter. She survived five weeks of burial in the collapsed garment factory where she had worked. A seamstress, she had earned $90-100 a month, essential […]
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We Can’t Go Back Again (to 1950s Tax Rates) | HughHewitt.com | 4.17.13

In an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Lawrence Mone, president of the Manhattan Institute, took on the leftist contention that a return to prosperity requires returning to the high marginal tax rates of the 1950s – 91 percent for top earners. In an article full of telling points, for me the most telling point was […]
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Two Examples: Obama On How NOT To Lead. Thatcher On How TO Lead. | HughHewitt.com | 4.08.13

If you want a measure of what it means to have an administration in Washington that puts failed ideology first, take a look at last week’s jobs report.  If you want an example of how a president should be acting in a time like this, look at how Margaret Thatcher, who passed away this morning, […]
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The Case for More Sequester | USNews.com | 4.08.13

I’m guessing you missed the latest troubling economic news. I am not talking about last week’s unemployment figures. A record 90 million Americans are now out of the workforce, taking the U.S. labor participation rate back to Carter administration levels – 63.5 percent. The White House tried to blame The Sequester. But the job trend […]
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Obama’s Quiet Declaration of War on Oil and Gas Production | USNews.com | 03.18.13

Last week, the president traveled to the Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago to deliver what the White House billed as a major speech on energy. To see what is wrong with the administration as it enters its second term, you could do worse than carefully reading that address. Despite the speech’s “energy” label, the oil […]
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President’s Second Term Prescription: Poison Pill Politics | HughHewitt.com | 2.20.13

FoxNews.com posted a home page story this evening that began, “President Obama pinned the blame on Republicans Tuesday for looming spending cuts that may be triggered by what was originally a White House proposal….” Well, duh. Hasn’t staging one deadlock after another been the Obama White House’s transparent game plan since Day One of Term […]
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At the New Year, the American Middle Class and the Ghost of Christmases Long Ago and Far Away | HughHewitt.com | 12.28.12

Looking back on the year now ending, I have been struck by a disconnect that has entered American language. Through the presidential campaign and now in the fiscal cliff fight, we have heard about “the middle class.”  The president – to the cheers of the media  — tells us he is for the middle class […]
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A Quiz and Two Rules for the Budget Talks | Hughhewitt.com | 12.11.12

OK, class, here’s a quiz. If the government were to raise the top personal income tax rate by, say, 25 percent, what would be the increase in its take of the total gross domestic product? Twenty-five percent? Are you sure?  After all how much of the government’s total personal income tax take actually comes from […]
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