Growth Strategies

Stimulus an Unnecessary Danger

[...] the current downturn may be all but over, and doing too much, not too little, is the real danger. Working with Congress, it could mandate trade protection, increase tax rates, divert resources from productive private investment to uneconomical government-sponsored activities, intrude in the management of major industries, or prosecute business people to make populist political points.

Unemployment and Stimulus

There is absolutely no long-term economic evidence that higher government spending creates jobs, writes Brian Wesbury, chief economist for First Trust Portfolios, L.P. Comparing the unemployment rate with federal government spending as a share of GDP over the past 50 years shows clearly that more government spending does not create jobs. [...] it is exactly the opposite. [...] for the first time in over 25 years, the unemployment rate is higher today than it was at its peak during the last ...

The Great Depression? No, the Great Repression

Uneasily aware that their discipline almost entirely failed to anticipate the current crisis, they seem to be regressing to macroeconomic childhood, clutching the Keynesian "multiplier effect" - which holds that a dollar spent by the government begets more than a dollar's worth of additional economic output - like an old teddy bear.

Let Innovation Stimulate the Economy

Consider the experience of the US steel industry in the 20th century and the tech sector at the start of the 21st century. After the 2000 stock market crash, hundreds of Silicon Valley startups collapsed, throwing thousands of highly paid computer professionals out of work.

Not the Failure or End of Capitalism

[...] the various "bailouts" should not undermine market discipline - a core feature of capitalism however one defines it - going forward.