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Monetary Policy

• Lower your taxes: come to Switzerland

  [BusinessWeek, September 17, 2009] As governments around the globe struggle to contain high deficits, companies and executives are bracing for higher taxes. And increasingly they are turning to Switzerland for relief.

• Toxic Assets Were Hidden Assets

  [Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2009] The current financial crisis, though exacerbated by default mortgages, was really set off by a severe downshift in the value of derivatives; i.e. the "toxic assets," because they were not linked to any tangible assets. We must find a way to restore our trust in the value of paper or else risk triggering another collapse, argues Hernando de Soto.

• The New Deal Didn’t Always Work, Either

  [NY Times, November 21, 2008] A study of the 1930s by Christina D. Romer, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley confirmed that expansionary monetary policy was the key to the partial recovery of the 1930s. The worst years of the New Deal were 1937 and 1938, right after the Fed increased reserve requirements for banks, thereby curbing lending and moving the economy back to dangerous deflationary pressures.

• Who Got My Money?

  [NY Times - Bob McTeer, October 22, 2008] One of the common fallacies in economics is the fallacy of composition. What’s true for you and what’s true for me may not be true for all of us together.

• Don't Worry About Inflation

  [Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2008] The Federal Reserve is facing a major challenge because high commodity prices, especially oil, have produced high headline inflation. But the Fed should not overreact.

• The Fed at Ease

  [The Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2008] The Federal Reserve stayed true to its recent news leaks yesterday and held its target interest rate at 2%. In lieu of action, Chairman Ben Bernanke and his mates decided merely to talk tougher about inflation, signaling that they may lack the will to tighten money in an election year.

• Monsieur Obama's Tax Rates

  [The Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2008] [T]axes under a President Obama would be à la française. The top marginal tax rate on income – including federal, state and local income and payroll levies – could reach 60% for many self-employed New Yorkers and Californians. Not even France's taxes are that high now that President Nicolas Sarkozy has capped the total that high-earning Frenchmen... pay in income, social and wealth taxes at 50% of earnings.

• Fed rate increase all talk for now

  [Washington Times, June 25, 2008] [P]rivate economists are widely in agreement that the Fed will not actually start raising interest rates, given how weak the economy is at the moment.

• Change We Can Believe In Is All Around Us

  [The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2008][T]he areas with the worst problems today are areas that have the most government interference – education, health care and energy. The best course of action is to allow a free-market economy to reallocate resources to the place of highest returns. In the midst of all the natural change, the last thing the U.S. economy needs is more government involvement, whether it's called change or not.

• Sound Money and Free Markets Will Spur Recovery

  [American Enterprise Institute, April 22, 2008] The primordial lesson of economic history is that sound money, low taxes on capital, and a regime of laissez-faire with respect to regulation and trade are the three necessary and sufficient conditions which guarantee long-run prosperity and economic growth. In the aftermath of the Federal Reserve's orchestration of the Bear Stearns sale, this seminal truth is being forgotten.

• The Coming Tax Bomb

  [American Enterprise Institute, April 8, 2008] Many commentators and political leaders, including Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, believe that tax increases are needed to restore near-term budget balance and finance longer-term entitlement growth. The strategy of ratifying spending with higher taxes would require that all federal taxes rise by nearly 60%, bringing them to a European-level tax burden. The consensus that tax increases are needed for fiscal balance is wrong. The next president can fund our defense priorities, maintain tax cuts, and balance the budget. A tax-increase consensus blurs the basic debates over our budget priorities in 2008--and severely limits our choices in 2028.

• Granholm's Tax Warning

  [The Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2008] [T]he latest news of Michigan's deepening budget woe is a national warning of what happens when you raise taxes in a weak economy.

• Proposed U.S. Law Targets Mortgage Tax Break

  [Financial Post, August 27, 2007] Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), is stirring up a hornet's nest over his plan to introduce a new law that would deny Americans with homes larger than 3,000 square feet a cherished mortgage income tax deduction in an effort to discourage energy use.

• Don't Mess With Success

  [Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2007] Despite campaign promises not to raise taxes, the new Democratic majority's budget fails to keep existing tax policies in place, which amounts to a $900 billion tax hike over five years, the largest tax increase ever.