A recent New York Times article on job conditions began by stating the obvious: ‘Many of the jobs lost during the recession are not coming back.’ The national unemployment rate began to rise from a low of 4.4 percent in…
What happens to the euro matters–a lot
Bullwinkle the Moose might call the $1 trillion euro intervention fund ‘antihistamine money’ since ‘it ain’t nothing to sneeze at.’ Give it to Henry Paulson, treasury secretary for George W. Bush, and he might think he had a bazooka in…
Gulf spill cancels out any irrational optimism for now
Suddenly, ‘drill-baby-drill’ enthusiasts are as rare as isolationists the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor or a quasi-amateur day trader after the high-tech stock bubble of the 1990s burst. Proponents of drilling now are as lonely as a…
Why airline mergers always bring higher fares
Economists have a pretty good idea of the likely effects of the pending United-Continental airline merger. Such mergers of large companies in any industry with few players can have at least two effects, and Minnesotans already are familiar with both.…