States jacked up spending by 81 percent (adjusted for inflation) between just 2002 and 2007, when the economy was going just fine. In order to make the case for poverty (let alone the case that it's the federal government's responsibility to bail out the bad decisions by state governments), you have to ignore that pre-recession... More

"Money will always flow toward opportunity, and there is an abundance of that in America Commentators today often talk of “great uncertainty.” But think back, for example, to December 6, 1941, October 18, 1987 and September 10, 2001. No matter how serene today may be, tomorrow is always uncertain."--Warren Buffett

With the new $5 million federal estate tax exemption for 2011 and 2012, most folks are blissfully free of any federal estate tax worries (for now). That's the good news. The bad news: Twenty states and the District of Columbia impose estate or inheritance taxes that kick in below the $5 million mark, and some kick in below $1 million. If you live in one of these places, your estate can be exempt from the federal death tax ... More

America is spending more money on education while producing worse outcomes.

What is to blame for the lack of a robust national recovery is the collapse of private business investment. Until this critical component of the economy — technically, "private domestic business net investment" — fully recovers, the economy will continue to sputter.

With the Oscars here, it seems reasonable to, does Hollywood profit from its many anti-war movies. Hollywood does indeed has a pretty large financial incentive for being so anti-American. Who knew that good old-fashioned greed could help explain Hollywood's political posturing?

Migrants' remittances, which are payments sent by foreign-born workers back to their home country, have become a significant source of monetary inflows for many countries. As one of the most important destinations of global migration, the United States is the single largest national source of remittances. The flow of remittances can affect economic growth, labor markets, poverty rates, and future migration rates in the United... More

The California State Teachers' Retirement System is sliding down a steep slope toward insolvency unless reforms are put in place, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

As much as Americans might complain about rising food prices in the U.S. (even though annual CPI food inflation hasn't been above 2% for almost two years), we've got the most affordable food on the planet as a share of income.  And compared to previous years, today's Americans have the most affordable food in U.S. history.

What's the single biggest job the federal government undertakes?

The President’s budget calls for flat spending on R&D, adjusted for inflation. Is that good news, or not?

Now that the White House has released President Barack Obama's latest budget proposals, we thought we'd update our look at how the future for federal spending has changed since George W. Bush was President.

There's an unsustainable college tuition textbook bubble that makes the recent "housing bubble" almost unnoticeable by comparison (see chart above), and those rents, just like 2007 home prices or 1995 AT&T long distance charges, probably can't be sustained.   

The dotted red line shows us that, over the past 50 years, federal government spending averaged just over one-fifth of the economy (20.2% of GDP). 

The figures belie a popular image of the United States as no longer making products, and being largely dependent on food exports. The total of agriculture-related exports in 2010, $122 billion, is less than the value of exports of either chemical or transportation products.

Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance

In 2010, there were only 11 major strikes and lockouts involving 1,000 or more workers, the second-lowest number  since the major work stoppages series began in 1947 (in 2009 there were 5), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week (see chart above). The decline in work stoppages over the last sixty years coincides with the ... More

The likely impact of a new oil price rise is shown in the graph, which compares oil prices (adjusted for inflation to 2010 dollars) to the U.S. unemployment rate from 1970 to the present. It can be seen that every oil price hike for the past four decades, including those in 1973, 1979, 1991, 2001, and 2008, was followed shortly afterwards by a dramatic rise in American unemployment.

The political obsession with homeownership raised homeownership in the short run to an artificial and unsustainable level of 69% by 2006, but failed in the long run to stimulate homeownership at a sustainable level, and in the process government policy turned good renters into bad homeowners, created a housing bubble, waves of foreclosures, and a ... More

From my perspective,  the slowdown in innovation started in 1998 or 2000.  The slowdown was mainly concentrated in the biosciences, reflected in statistics like a slowdown in new drug approvals, and slow or no gains in death rates for many age groups.

Last year represented the second-least-active period for strikes and lockouts on record, in a sign of just how troubled the labor market has been, a U.S. government report Tuesday said.

Market forces have been driving walk-in medicine and will continue in the industry’s favor: cost, convenience, quality and flexibility.

A new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago says that taxes and sweetened beverages — which many states are considering as a source of revenue — would hit the poor, minorities and less educated Americans disproportionately. Bottom line: A sugar tax might help reduce obesity and the health hazards that come with it, but it’s a highly regressive approach.

In 2010, the District of Columbia (64.3%) was once again the top destination in the United States for the third consecutive year. More

Conventional wisdom over the last few years has been that, with staff jobs scarce, more of America’s relentlessly entrepreneurial workers have turned to self-employment. The numbers don’t quite bear that out.

The stagnant economy has long kept many of Egypt’s 80 million citizens deprived of economic opportunity. Particularly, the young in Egypt have been increasingly frustrated about their country’s outmoded economic system and discouraging reality.

The Daily Beast crunches the numbers and comes up with states sitting on the biggest debt loads.

A federal employee is far less likely to be laid off than a worker in the private sector. What's the value of this job security?