Americans are drowning in a sea of debt, paper work, rules and regulations. Yet voters continue to send to Washington a class of political elites with no experience to lead and no desire to stop America’s tsunami-like spending. According to Gallup, 72% of Americans are of the view that big government is a more of […]
Obama and Congress Abandon any Pretense of Fiscal Restraint
As Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner explains, in 2008, when President Obama first took office, public debt equaled 39% of GDP. Today it is over 73%, the largest share since 1950 when America was still paying down WWII debt. When President Obama took office, debt held by the public equaled 39 percent of GDP. Today, it […]
Good morning from Islamorada, Dick & Debbie
U.S. 12/ Canada 0, Keep Cash on Hand
12 to 0? No, not the latest hockey score from Sochi. Rather, 12 is the number of times since 1840 that the U.S. has faced a systemic banking crisis, while Canada has had 0. Remember “too big to fail?” Well how about “built to fail?” At this year’s excellent Cato Benefactors Summit in Sarasota, Florida, […]
Bitcoin Unreliable?
Talking with NPR, Campbell Harvey, a financial economist at Duke University, contends that Bitcoin is 10 times more volatile than the changes in the price of gold and 20 times more volatile than holding U.S. dollars. But just as the fluctuation can take you from rags to riches, bitcoin transactions can also go downhill for merchants. […]
Entrepreneurial Federalism Vs. Union Cronyism
It is commonly but erroneously stated that the U.S. government bailed out the auto industry. But truth be known, the Obama administration bailed out only two of the three auto companies. Those two companies were in one of the two U.S. auto industries—the UAW-organized one. The other industry—the one not saddled with the industry-ruining UAW—was […]
“Work Is the Best Form of Welfare”
Here Cato’s Michael Tanner explains how in the United States welfare spending has grown faster than in any country in Europe except Ireland, Spain and Portugal. The welfare-centric Obama administration could learn a lot from Australia. How bad have things become? The British newspaper the Telegraph recently looked at the growth in welfare spending in industrialized nations and […]
Scientific Errors Gone Wild
Dick and I recently attended another Cato event, this one in Naples, Florida, Ritz Carlton. If you’ve not been to one of these events, you need to. They are extremely well run, entertaining and informative. The featured speaker this year was John Stossel, host of Stossel, Fox Business Network, whose low-key, fireside-chat manner gave the […]
Flawed, Untested, Inept…
Oh, and untruthful. Here’s what O’Care navigators are advising desperate citizens whose health insurance policies have been cancelled: Buy the higher priced policy with higher deductible plan and appeal later. Just one little problem, Mr. Obama. There’s no appeal process in place. The government cannot yet fix the errors. Read here about the 22,000 or […]
Lawlessness in the White House
President Obama simply ignores laws he doesn’t like, even ones he has signed. Here as Paul Ryan explains to George Stephanopoulos, “We have an increasingly lawless presidency where he (Obama) is actually doing the job of Congress, writing new policies and new laws without going through Congress. Presidents don’t write laws, Congress does.” Mr. Ryan goes […]
