Alan Reynolds from Creators Syndicate

Message to Mitt: A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats for 02/04/2012

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

A rising tide lifts all boats.

That great phrase was coined by the late Jack Kemp, who believed that growth and opportunity for all is the answer to poverty. In fact, Kemp believed it was the answer to all things economic. And he was right. The best anti-poverty program is the one that creates jobs. The answer to large budget deficits? Grow the economy, create jobs, watch incomes rise, a ...

Updated: Sat Feb 04, 2012

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A Progressive Backlash? for 06/01/2007

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:00:00 -0700

It suddenly became clear that Hillary Clinton and her advisors intend to run a negative presidential campaign — not negative about other candidates, but about the U.S. economy.

On May 29, Sen. Clinton launched her "Modern Progressive Vision: Shared Prosperity," which strains to justify "returning high-income tax rates to the 1990s levels." It was full of gloomy ...

Updated: Fri Jun 01, 2007

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Immigration Semantics for 05/24/2007

Thu, 24 May 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Rational discussion of the Senate immigration bill is being stifled and befuddled by a few misused words and phrases that generate irrational anger and very little understanding.

The simple dichotomy between legal and illegal immigrants, for example, ignores the 175 million foreigners who arrived in the United States in 2005 as legal nonimmigrants — tourists, business trav ...

Updated: Thu May 24, 2007

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When "Progressive" Means Punitive for 05/17/2007

Thu, 17 May 2007 00:00:00 -0700

In a recent New York Times column, Paul Krugman frets that we are in a "New Gilded Age" because "every available measure of income concentration shows that we've gone back to levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s."

The only estimates that go back to the 1920s are a 1953 study of income tax data by Simon Kuznets and an updated 2001 study along the same lines by ...

Updated: Thu May 17, 2007

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Blinder's Blunder for 05/10/2007

Thu, 10 May 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Economist Alan Blinder wrote in The Washington Post that "offshoring of service jobs from rich countries such as the United States to poor countries such as India may pose major problems for tens of millions of American workers over the coming decades. In fact, I think offshoring may be the biggest political issue in economics for a generation."

The telling phrase is "poli ...

Updated: Thu May 10, 2007

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The Fear Industry for 05/03/2007

Thu, 03 May 2007 00:00:00 -0700

George Tenet made patently ridiculous claims about WMD in Iraq, while serving as CIA director, and was eventually fired. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz made patently ridiculous claims about WMD in Iraq and was promoted to president of the World Bank. Both men are back in the news, with Wolfowitz in trouble for getting his girlfriend a tax-free $50,000 raise, and Tenet pushing ...

Updated: Thu May 03, 2007

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What Supply-Side Economics Means for 04/26/2007

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700

In "The Seven Fat Years," Robert Bartley, the legendary former editor of The Wall Street Journal, wrote: "On March 26, 1976 Herb Stein coined a label, the 'supply-side fiscalists,' telling a conference at the Homestead Resort in Virginia that it consisted of 'maybe two' economists. Alan Reynolds passed this along to Jude (Wanniski), who promptly appropriated the label, though dro ...

Updated: Thu Apr 26, 2007

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What Is Income? for 04/19/2007

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Two French economists, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, can count on a flood of publicity every time they release a new estimate of the share of U.S. income supposedly received by the top 1 percent. Even veteran Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson approached their latest "astonishing" estimates as unquestionable scripture. "The biggest gains occurred among the richest 1 p ...

Updated: Thu Apr 19, 2007

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Comparing Bush and Clinton Economies for 04/12/2007

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700

A recent Gallup poll found that only 41 percent of respondents approved of Bush's handling of the economy, compared to 55 percent who disapproved. Such a question would make sense, of course, only if the United States were a centrally planned dictatorship. In a free society, the less the president handles the economy the better off we are.

Because polls reflect perception rather than rea ...

Updated: Thu Apr 12, 2007

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Layoffs in PerspectivePopulism = Fear of Change for 04/05/2007

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Alan Reynolds

Lou Uchitelle is at it again. The New York Times writer famed for hysterical reporting on “The Downsizing of America” Here come the

If it wasn't an April fool's joke, it reveals for trillionth time the New York Times' reckless disregard for economic reality.

Lou Uchitelle of The New York Times ...

Updated: Thu Apr 05, 2007

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David Stockman: Man and Myth for 03/29/2007

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director David Stockman, whom I worked with in the 1981 Reagan administration transition team, has gotten himself involved in a legal tussle with the Justice Department. The charges center on bookkeeping irregularities at a bankrupt producer of auto interior supplies, Collins & Aikman, in which Stockman was heavily invested.

Some reporters ...

Updated: Thu Mar 29, 2007

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Subprime Economics for 03/22/2007

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0700

When it comes to economic news, the press tends to be biased toward exaggeration and sensationalism. If some event isn't a "scandal," then it must be a "crisis."

The latest example of crisis journalism turned the phrase "mortgage meltdown" into an overnight cliche. It began with the effort to blame a worldwide dip in stock prices on local U.S. problems with ...

Updated: Thu Mar 22, 2007

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Sen. Schumer's Tax Loopholes for 03/15/2007

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0700

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and a half-dozen freshman legislators, reports the Los Angeles Times, "want to add tax credits and deductions to benefit narrow groups of largely middle-class constituents. Among potential beneficiaries: people with elderly parents in nursing homes, new parents, college students, volunteer firefighters and organ donors. ... Schumer's bill was modeled on proposal ...

Updated: Thu Mar 15, 2007

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"Backdating" Bunkum for 03/08/2007

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0800

During the euphoric high-tech boom of the 1990s, America Online offered my daughter a thousand stock options to recruit her away from another firm. In 2001, after four years of vesting, that gave her the right to buy those shares at the price on the day the options were granted. But what day should that be?

Weeks passed, as usual, between her initial interview and subsequent appointments ...

Updated: Thu Mar 08, 2007

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Stock Shock for 03/01/2007

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Sudden drops in stock prices typically provoke more panic among reporters than among investors. When Dow industrials fell by 22.6 percent on October 19, 1987, the press was quickly filled with alarmed stories about an imminent "hard landing" that soon proved quite foolish. Some of us who did not buy those stories bought stocks and bonds at bargain prices.

The market's drop of a ...

Updated: Thu Mar 01, 2007

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Politics and Moralizing for 02/22/2007

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen laments the fact that candidates are under heavy pressure to tailor their beliefs (or rhetoric) to "get past ideological bottlenecks" in early primary states: "For Republicans, it's the religious right; for Democrats, it's economic pressure groups such as teachers unions. The rest of us can only stand by, helpless, waiting for extremists to ...

Updated: Thu Feb 22, 2007

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Politics and Religion for 02/15/2007

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0800

When Jack Kennedy ran for president, there was a great deal of fussing and fuming about his being Catholic. In a June 1960 Roper poll, 35 percent objected to a Catholic president. Why? Did anyone really think he'd try to ban birth control, require eating fish on Fridays or consult with the pope on foreign policy?

Today, nobody would dare suggest that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is no ...

Updated: Thu Feb 15, 2007

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Inequality of What ... and When? for 02/08/2007

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0800

President Bush recently announced that inequality has "been rising for more than 25 years." But what did the president mean by inequality? And when, during that 25- year period, was inequality rising?

Edward Lazear is chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, so he seems a likely source for the president's impulse to be mistaken for a Democrat. In a speech last ...

Updated: Thu Feb 08, 2007

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Dismal, Dreary Democrats for 01/25/2007

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Since President Bush's State of the Union Address quickly garnered a generous share of criticism, it seems more useful to take a look at the economic comments offered in rebuttal by Virginia's new Democratic senator, Jim Webb. The Democrats are in charge, and they picked Webb to explain their party's Jacksonian vision thing.

He began by repackaging John Edwards' Two Americas: "When ...

Updated: Thu Jan 25, 2007

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Looking High and Low for Taxes for 01/18/2007

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0800

A year-end AP-AOL News Poll found 89 percent of Americans optimistic about their own family's living standards, but less so about the fate of strangers. That is perfectly understandable. It is hard to read a newspaper without being told that only the top 1 percent are doing well, while the rest of us have either seen our jobs exported to China or have suffered years of unexplained "wage st ...

Updated: Thu Jan 18, 2007

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