Politicians may say that tax rates don’t matter, but the number of people who move away from Minnesota to low-tax states suggest otherwise. So do the actions of politicians who offer selective tax breaks. But today, I’d like to tell a story about one person whose life choices suggest that tax rates do affect personal behavior–sometimes to [...]
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
How is it that Michigan, of all states, is set to become the latest state to have a right-to-work law? Economic distress is one factor, but personalities and over-reach are factors as well. Long-term decline leads to a one-state recession One factor in Michigan’s move to right-to-work is the state’s dismal economic performance. In the [...]
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Did the passage of Obamacare play a role in setting up Michigan’s move to right to work? Certainly, competitive pressures from Indiana are key, as Henry Payne points out. But the lessons of Obamacare should not be overlooked, either. Consider how Washington Democrats passed the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (ACA), as the law is formally [...]
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
It looks like we’re going to be breaking a lot more windows over the next four years, and crowing about what government can do. Barack Obama proclaims “We saved GM.” There’s a lot to argue with in that statement, but here’s one point I’d like to camp on: It neglects the fact that we could [...]
Starting sometime in the 1990s, the U.S. government, plus the European Union, aggressively took antitrust action against Microsoft. “We must act,” said the smart ones in government. “If we don’t, Microsoft will get too big, and control too much.” What a difference a few technological revolutions make. Last week, Microsoft rolled out a new version of [...]
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
This week, a group of people known for grabbing all they can from the public trough is having a grand event that attracts thousands of people and non-stop media coverage. No, I’m not talking about the Democratic National Convention, meeting this week in North Carolina. I mean the National Football League, which kicks off its [...]
By current standards, Minnesota’s economy is among the best in the nation. But will it continue to be in the top tier? Last year, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said that Minnesota ranked 13th in per capital personal income. The state’s average income of $42,843, was six percent higher than the national average. That’s pretty good, [...]
By current standards, Minnesota’s economy is among the best in the nation. But will it continue to be in the top tier? Last year, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said that Minnesota ranked 13th in per capital personal income. The state’s average income of $42,843, was six percent higher than the national average. That’s pretty good, [...]
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The warm winter, virtually without snow, provides a lesson in incomplete thinking about economics. The Star Tribune recently published a story about the economic impact of the season: “Minnesota businesses are seeing red ink in brown winter.” It then quotes, as evidence, people with businesses that clear driveways of snow, remove ice dams from buildings, [...]
To put the size of the U.S. debt in perspective: It’s $14.3 trillion, as Dan Calabrese mentions. The entire U.S. economy, as measured in the last three months of last year, was $14.8 trillion. In other words, for every dollar in the economy, the U.S. government owes someone another dollar. Add in $2.4 trillion (or more) debt [...]