I read over a great WSJ article, Politicians Butt In at Bailed-Out GM, which demonstrates the problems with government intervening heavily in the decisions of businesses. A few quotes:
Thomas Geisel, chief executive of New Jersey’s Sun Bancorp Inc., says the bank paid back its federal money in June because of legislation that imposed limits on bankers’ pay, among other areas. “Lawmakers let emotion and ego get in the way of making good business decisions,” he says.
“I was elected to represent the interests of Montana, not General Motors, which is …

People often get social institutions confused, by confusing the role of markets, the role of government, and the role of private social institutions.
Capitalism:
Capitalism typically refers to an economic and social system in which the means of production (also known as capital) are privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in a market; profits are distributed to owners or invested in new technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor. (Wikipedia)
Statism:
A major government or state role in the direction of the economy, both directly through state-owned enterprises and indirectly …

I wrote in my Article titled, “US Steelmakers Support Green House Gas Legislation” on United Steelworkers supporting GHG legislation and assumed they were doing so to get more favorable treatment from the White House.
In fact the United Steelworkers couldn’t get any trade complaints passed through the Bush administration so their hoping for some traction with Obama (particular since he pledged to increase trade enforcement). They are currently trying to get ‘trade enforcement’ considerations by Obama on imported Chinese tires.
Well Obama ended up signing a 35-percent tariff on imported tires (a …

I have had an inclining to get up to speed on GHG science and the actual debate about GHG’s affect on global warming for some time now. I recall a friend of mine in a environmental policy class stating that its hard, as a student, with little specific knowledge of the science to understand the details behind GHG science in a manner that allows him to judged if its true or not.
Just take a quick look at a website devoted to the science of temperature …

The House of Representatives is planning on voting this week on the week Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. This bill requires entities to hold one allowance for any fuel whose combustion would emit one ton of greenhouse gas. The below image shows the Heritage foundations estimation of the costs of this program.

There has been push back from environmentalist for the lack of stringency of the bill (see this op-ed), whereas conservatives criticize the bill for the negative consequences to the economy and increased costs to households (see this report).
For me …

I came across this NY Times article a few weeks ago describing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner statement that banks are now able to raise capital.
The country’s biggest banks have made moves to bolster their balance sheets by about $56 billion since the government disclosed the results of its financial “stress tests” two weeks ago, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Wednesday.
So the question that came to my mind after reading the article is, “Where is all this money coming from?’

That’s right. The Federal Reserve has been expanding …

I recently read The Making of an Economist, which provides insight into the world of PhD economist. The authors, Arjo Klamer and David Colander, surveyed a few hundred students from teh top economics PhD programs in the country. Their findings were disappointing, and I hope to post some more on the current state of the economics profession, as Colander has supplemented the 1987 book with an updated analysis and an updated book.
This post will focus on some of the methodological problems of economics, which I felt Colander clearly …

I was just watching an interview with Milton Friedman and he stated that,

There is a smoke stack on the back of every government program. That is to say that every government programs impose a cost on third parties where the third parties are not receiving compensation.

This came out of the context of discussing when government may need to intervene in the market. Milton Friedman and some other classical liberals (libertarians) think that the only case for government is when it is not feasible for market arrangements to make …