News
CNN Money | Japan's trade surplus plunges after earthquake
The earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan last month also had a major impact on the country's trade balance.
National Journal | Urging Clean-Energy Investment, Obama Cites High Gas Prices
President Obama is trying to ward off the inevitable political backlash that accompanies high gasoline prices by turning pain at the pump into an argument for clean-energy investment.
Econ Comments
CNN Money | Corruption: The biggest threat to developing economies
Many people shrug at corruption because they figure it's eternal and incurable. Not so.
Washington Times | Red tape recession
Government rules are stifling economic growth
Minyanville | Voodoo Economics: Policy Responses to the Global Financial Crisis
In framing policy responses to the global financial crisis, central bankers and governments have increasingly embraced more exotic forms of "voodoo."
Blogs
Cato@Liberty | All You Have to Do Is Let Go of the Monopoly
Why is this so weak? Because it gives parents and taxpayers — the people who pay for public education and whom the system is supposed to serve — the fewest avenues to get what they want out of the schools.
Heritage Foundation: The Foundry | Solar Power on the Taxpayers’ Dime
Someone should really tell the Department of Energy (DOE) about the federal government’s spending crisis.
The Atlantic | Markets and the Common Good
All the activity of a modern human takes place in the context of society. That requires balancing of individual rights and the common good. But this is not a blank check for the government to trample rights as it pleases . . . nor a blanket answer when people complain that the government has gotten too intrusive.
Heritage Foundation: The Foundry | Morning Bell: Gulf Oil Spill, One Year Later
A year ago today, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico cost the lives of 11 men and threatened untold damage to the ecosystem. It was an unprecedented disaster, and the tragic loss of life it entailed made it all the more imperative that such an accident never repeat itself.
Forbes | How Many Politicians Are Needed To Screw Up A Light Bulb?
The lights have been permanently shut off at the last major U.S. incandescent light bulb plant, General Electric’s Winchester, Va., facility. But don’t worry. GE’s Chinese plants will replace them with a different kind that is supposed to be better.
Reports
RCM | Does Unreal GDP Drive Our Policy Choices?
Gross Domestic Product is used to measure a country’s economic growth and standard of living. It measures neither. Unfortunately, the finance community and global centers of power are wedded to a measure that bears little relation to reality, because it confuses prosperity with debt-fueled spending.
