Durbin, Dodd, Frank, and Lord Have Mercy
The more government intervenes in the financial markets, the more it finds a need to … intervene some more. That may be one message from the Dodd-Frank financial “reform” law that I wrote about the other day. The Wall Street Journal notes in an editorial that Daniel Tarullo, a governor of the Federal Reserve, now says the law, meant to protect taxpayers, could be creating institutions that are, as […]
An Interstate Compact as a Bulwark Against Federal Overreach
My friends at the North Dakota Policy Council alerted me to yet another arrow that advocates of health care freedom have in their quiver: an interstate health care freedom compact. Coupled with lawsuits and variations on the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, interstate compacts form an interesting and perhaps successful action against an overreaching federal government. Dr. Frankenstein’s monster popularly known as ObamaCare may have […]
Intervening in a Private Fight
Businesses have a love/hate relationship with credit and debit cards. On the one hand, the cards boost sales and remove the risk to the merchant that they will get paid with a bounced check. On the other hand, merchants have to cough up fees that pay for everything that’s involved in keeping that payment system going. Recently, some major merchants have cheered Congress onto imposing […]
Minnesota on Math
According to a recent report, “math skills better predict future earnings and other economic outcomes than other skills learned in high school.” So how does Minnesota compare with the other states and countries around the world? We get some answers in “U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective” (PDF), published by the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. Minnesota does well compared with other […]
CFLs contribute to “everyone must recycle” mantra
Consumer Reports, which actually provides some useful content when it isn’t busy asking for more government intervention in the economy, recently had this to say about the bulbs that our “green” overseers want to replace the faithful incandescent: “Tossing CFLS in the trash isn’t a bright idea; the bulbs contain small amounts of mercury.” Mercury, you say? I imagine that CR was among those calling […]
Chrysler ad touts faded glory
Though I linked to the Chrysler/Eminem ad, I didn’t comment on it, wanting instead to let my colleagues who actually work or live in the city comment on it. Now that they have, I’ll add what I thought of when I saw the ad: public schools that have the worst graduation rate in the country. Also I thought of a resentment towards outsiders that has […]
Manufacturing has changed, not ended
Is manufacturing in the U.S. dead? No, but it certainly has been transformed. Syndicated columnist Jeff Jacoby points out that that 20 percent of the world’s manufacturing output comes from the United States. “A vast amount of ‘stuff’ is still made in the USA, albeit not the inexpensive consumer goods that fill the shelves in Target or Walgreens.” http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/watercooler/index.php?blogid=1647