Marketplace of Ideas

Marketplace of Ideas

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Only 23 percent of Americans believe the federal government truly reflects the will of the people...Norman Ornstein suggests ways to improve the earmarking process...The Mayor of London is trying to tempt foreign businesses to the capital by offering companies up to a year’s free rent...Fifteen cars from 10 automakers saw their sales hold steady or increase last month but only two models are from domestic automakers...We are experiencing the result of ‘one of the most spectacular financial miscalculations in history'...

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Investment banks are rescinding job offers to skilled immigrant workers due to a ‘hire American’ provision in the stimulus bill…The omnibus bill now before Congress exemplifies how pet projects are inserted into large spending bills with little debate or scrutiny…The newly appointed chief information officer of the federal government, Vivek Kundra, wants to bring the latest technologies to the government but faces challenges…President Obama’s move on embryonic stem cell research comes when many advances have been made with other sorts of stem cells…Washington’s latest offer to Moscow is bound to be rejected…

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

‘To put it simply, when left alone, recessions tend to correct themselves’...Less access to revolving credit may be a bad thing the short term, but good in the long run…Christina D. Romer of the Council of Economic Advisers reflects on lessons from the Great Depression…A survey by Rasmussen Reports finds nearly half the nation’s voters think politics in Washington, D.C., will be more partisan over the next year, up 15 points from early January…A working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research investigates the effect of relative income on marital status…

Monday, March 9, 2009

What is bigger than the combined economies of India, Russia, Brazil, Spain, and Canada? The U.S. budget deficit over the next ten years, if the Obama budget plan becomes law…Some labor experts are arguing that the federal law requiring warning of certain kinds of layoffs should be overhauled to cover smaller job cuts…In ‘clean coal,’ the world’s leaders are counting on a fix for climate change that is uncertain and perhaps unworkable…The United States is a ‘seller’s market’ for college-educated labor…The Treasury Secretary still lacks 17 deputies in his department...

Friday, March 6, 2009

The stimulus package is likely to reduce the number of entrepreneurs in America…In yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Wyeth v. Levine, ‘the majority had to misrepresent the facts, to put the matter charitably’…Newt Gingrich and Roy Innis argue for expanding U.S. sources of energy and challenge Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s policies that place restrictions on oil and gas drilling…More Americans say they would only consider cars from American companies when making a new-car purchase than a few months ago…Smaller cars are coming but it’s not clear Americans will buy them…

Thursday, March 5, 2009

A comparison of economic stimulus efforts around the world…How much is a trillion dollars anyway? Lynne Kiesling gets smart about smart grids…A survey of immigrants who had worked or received their education in the United States finds that the most significant factors in their returning to their home countries were career opportunities, family ties, and quality of life…Much of the macroeconomics and monetary economics taught at universities during the past 30 years was a setback and a waste…

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

What are Americans consuming less of? The argument for ‘free markets’ explored in a Q and A…European Union governments have delivered a blow to the biotechnology industry…The Kauffman Foundation released a report challenging recent restrictions on H-1B visas…Citigroup announced a new program aimed at addressing unemployed homeowners…

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

The Obama administration is ignoring deflationary psychology, which could be addressed by bribing homebuyers not to wait…In California, implementing legislation to tackle global warming is proving contentious, especially given the economy…Ten Fortune 500 companies that started from very humble beginnings…The Obama administration has missed an opportunity for racial progress… John Bolton considers the risk that ‘Tehran will use its opportunity to employ diplomacy to undermine U.S. interests’…

Monday, March 2, 2009

President Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget proposal attempts to put the role of the federal government ‘in such a dominant position that its power can never be rolled back’...‘The Obama administration’s outlook has private economists wondering: Has Rosy Scenario made a comeback?’...Charles Krauthammer says that the economic crisis gives President Obama the ‘political space’ to move the United States toward European-style social democracy…President Obama’s plan lessens the incentive for the wealthy to give to charity...Kuwait’s foreign minister has flown to Iraq for the highest-level visit since Iraq’s armed forces invaded its southern neighbor in 1990…

Friday, February 27, 2009

If the Obama administration cannot take troubled assets off major banks’ balance sheets, ‘a disastrous policy’ of nationalizing the banks ‘might actually become the last resort'...Newsweek interviews Larry Summers, who says he will urge the president and Congress to touch the third rail of politics...Edward L. Glaeser finds fault with the home mortgage interest deduction...Startup valuations are falling and venture capitalists are driving harder bargains, according to a new survey...‘Amid this carnage there is one thing that, surprisingly, has continued to grow: the paycheck of the average worker’...