There are few things more dangerous in economic discourse than a snappy but incorrect analogy. Unfortunately, these are all too common. Nobel winner and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman made one recently, arguing that it might not be so…
A dollar’s value is a poor measure of U.S. prosperity
A U.S. dollar in 2011 has lost 95.9 percent of the buying power it had a century ago. In other words, the Consumer Price Index is 24.3 times as high in 2011 as it was in 1911. Michele Bachmann says…
U.S. wants to muddle through to better economic times
The American people seem to be in a mood to “compile additional data.” A friend of mine, an old hand in Alcoholics Anonymous, uses that phrase to describe early phases in his recovery when he would relapse into heavy drinking.…
Magazine’s list of ‘tax hell’ states doesn’t apply to everyone
Minnesota might not always be No. 1, but we did make No. 2, at least on a list issued by personal-finance magazine Kiplinger’s of states least friendly to retirees. Only Vermont was rated worse based on tabulations of income, sales,…