Articles in the Not So Fast! Category
Ben Bernanke Saved the Day?
Posted in Not So Fast!, Uncategorized on 28 October 2009
Stats: 0 views and No Comments The final verdict is in. The venerable “progressive” Atlantic has spoken. Ben Bernanke and his “radical interventions,” the publication recently claimed, “may have saved the day.” Yet there are doubters out there; I’m one of them.
Posted in Not So Fast!, Uncategorized on 28 October 2009
Stats: 0 views and No Comments The final verdict is in. The venerable “progressive” Atlantic has spoken. Ben Bernanke and his “radical interventions,” the publication recently claimed, “may have saved the day.” Yet there are doubters out there; I’m one of them.
Don’t Cry For Us, Argentina
Posted in Not So Fast! on 21 October 2009
Stats: 231 views and 3 Comments Economic news continues to be bad, and despite the government’s promises that the recession’s end is near, I don’t see it. Economic fundamentals are more skewed now than they were two years ago, which means a recovery is not near. We hear today that the Canadian dollar is almost at parity ...
Posted in Not So Fast! on 21 October 2009
Stats: 231 views and 3 Comments Economic news continues to be bad, and despite the government’s promises that the recession’s end is near, I don’t see it. Economic fundamentals are more skewed now than they were two years ago, which means a recovery is not near. We hear today that the Canadian dollar is almost at parity ...
Is a Weak Dollar a Strong Sign? Not So Fast!
Posted in Not So Fast! on 14 October 2009
Stats: 24 views and 4 Comments Readers of George Orwell’s 1984 might recall Big Brother’s claims that “war is peace” or “freedom is slavery.” Orwell was writing a novel, but some of the commentary these days makes me think that elite economists have taken residence in Oceania’s “Ministry of Truth.” Today, the champion—the uncontested champion of Orwell’s ...
Posted in Not So Fast! on 14 October 2009
Stats: 24 views and 4 Comments Readers of George Orwell’s 1984 might recall Big Brother’s claims that “war is peace” or “freedom is slavery.” Orwell was writing a novel, but some of the commentary these days makes me think that elite economists have taken residence in Oceania’s “Ministry of Truth.” Today, the champion—the uncontested champion of Orwell’s ...
Do We Need Another Stimulus?
Posted in Not So Fast! on 7 October 2009
Stats: 6 views and 1 Comment The New York Times editorial page has spoken: We need another “stimulus” or the economy will be moribund for the foreseeable future. On October 2 Paul Krugman declared: Yes, the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration have pulled us “back from the brink” — the title of a new paper by ...
Posted in Not So Fast! on 7 October 2009
Stats: 6 views and 1 Comment The New York Times editorial page has spoken: We need another “stimulus” or the economy will be moribund for the foreseeable future. On October 2 Paul Krugman declared: Yes, the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration have pulled us “back from the brink” — the title of a new paper by ...
The Stimulus Helped the Economy? Not So Fast!
Posted in Not So Fast! on 30 September 2009
Stats: 7 views and No Comments President Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, and Paul Krugman claim the “stimulus” and other interventions have “pulled the economy from the brink.” And even that’s not enough, as Krugman notes in a recent New York Times blog post: In a rational political and policy environment, the implication of all this [the fading ...
Posted in Not So Fast! on 30 September 2009
Stats: 7 views and No Comments President Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, and Paul Krugman claim the “stimulus” and other interventions have “pulled the economy from the brink.” And even that’s not enough, as Krugman notes in a recent New York Times blog post: In a rational political and policy environment, the implication of all this [the fading ...
Did Cash for Clunkers “Revitalize” the Auto Industry?
Posted in Not So Fast! on 23 September 2009
Stats: 55 views and 4 Comments During a recent conversation with a friend, he told me that the Cash for Clunkers program had “done wonders” for the auto industry. Indeed, he hardly is alone. Automotive News recently editorialized that the program “worked,” and now it is time to “build on its success.” The editorial declared: The August U.S. ...
Posted in Not So Fast! on 23 September 2009
Stats: 55 views and 4 Comments During a recent conversation with a friend, he told me that the Cash for Clunkers program had “done wonders” for the auto industry. Indeed, he hardly is alone. Automotive News recently editorialized that the program “worked,” and now it is time to “build on its success.” The editorial declared: The August U.S. ...
Obama and the Protectionist War Against the Poor
Posted in Not So Fast! on 16 September 2009
Stats: 23 views and 8 Comments After President Barack Obama unilaterally slapped a 35 percent tariff on Chinese-made tires imported to the United States, I checked the Usual Sites to see if there were any objections to this latest government assault against lower-income Americans. I flyspecked the New York Times, and while there were editorials and columns ...
Posted in Not So Fast! on 16 September 2009
Stats: 23 views and 8 Comments After President Barack Obama unilaterally slapped a 35 percent tariff on Chinese-made tires imported to the United States, I checked the Usual Sites to see if there were any objections to this latest government assault against lower-income Americans. I flyspecked the New York Times, and while there were editorials and columns ...
Krugman Also Gets It Wrong
Posted in Not So Fast! on 9 September 2009
Stats: 6 views and 5 Comments In 1998 Paul Krugman wrote an attack on the Austrian theory of the business cycle (ATBC), saying that it was about as credible as the “phlogiston theory of fire.” Not surprisingly, he managed not only to mislabel the ATBC (calling it a “Hangover Theory”) but also proved incapable even of ...
Posted in Not So Fast! on 9 September 2009
Stats: 6 views and 5 Comments In 1998 Paul Krugman wrote an attack on the Austrian theory of the business cycle (ATBC), saying that it was about as credible as the “phlogiston theory of fire.” Not surprisingly, he managed not only to mislabel the ATBC (calling it a “Hangover Theory”) but also proved incapable even of ...
The Legacy of Progressivism
Posted in Not So Fast! on 2 September 2009
Stats: 207 views and 10 Comments The national debt runs out of control. The Federal Reserve System has purchased hundreds of billions of dollars of private assets by creating new money out of thin air. The number of prisoners in the nation’s jails continues to grow to new records every year. Government at all levels systematically ...
Posted in Not So Fast! on 2 September 2009
Stats: 207 views and 10 Comments The national debt runs out of control. The Federal Reserve System has purchased hundreds of billions of dollars of private assets by creating new money out of thin air. The number of prisoners in the nation’s jails continues to grow to new records every year. Government at all levels systematically ...
Mises, Human Action and Economic Calculation
Posted in Not So Fast! on 26 August 2009
Stats: 6 views and No Comments Six decades ago Ludwig von Mises published his masterpiece, Human Action, and it grows in importance. I was unaware of the book’s existence and its timeless truths through my formative years, but one of Mises’ students, William Peterson, introduced it to me in 1980, and I forever will be ...
Posted in Not So Fast! on 26 August 2009
Stats: 6 views and No Comments Six decades ago Ludwig von Mises published his masterpiece, Human Action, and it grows in importance. I was unaware of the book’s existence and its timeless truths through my formative years, but one of Mises’ students, William Peterson, introduced it to me in 1980, and I forever will be ...
