The budget stress that governments face now is structural, not cyclical. What’s called for is an examination of the entire public enterprise.

While the animus against banks is understandable, and even in some instances deserved, without a healthy and prosperous banking industry the economy cannot rebound.

A large and modern economy, made up of hundreds of millions of participants who make spending and investment decisions by the minute, is far too complex to allow for centralized coordination. Such efforts, Hayek warned, invariably make a difficult situation worse.

While not allowable under existing U.S. securities laws, crowd-fund investing can provide a way for small investors, both accredited and unaccredited, to pool their individual small investments to support entrepreneurs and enterprises that have merit.

According to the evidence I’ve examined, the best thing states can do to improve educational outcomes is to improve the overall economic well-being of its citizens, which means a healthy national economy, more and better paying jobs, and higher incomes for families. That’s the real chore, and our collective reluctance to invest in that larger enterprise can’t bode well for any nation that really wants more... More

The evidence suggests that workers, not owners of corporations, pay the price for the corporate tax. Reforming it should be an essential part of U.S. tax overhaul.

Globalization works because it is supported by a broadly accepted set of rules that are well known and, for the most part, enforceable. Those rules, which are set forth in pacts including the World Trade Organization agreements and a vast and growing network of free trade agreements and investment treaties, create expectations, which allow producers of goods and services, importers, exporters and investors to plan their... More

The U.S. needs to have a dialogue on tax reform, an idea that has wide support among people of all political persuasions. Obama continues to talk reform, but broad-based reform is not Obama’s style. He sees the size of the pie as finite -- and his job as slicer-in-chief.

Solyndra, the now-bankrupt California solar panel company, which was once the poster child of the administration’s “green jobs” initiative, is proving to be Exhibit A in the case for why the president’s economic policies have failed.

A recent survey found that work/life balance and vacation time ranked extremely high on their wish list. They also expected high salaries and quick promotions. On average, they expected a starting salary of $53,000 a year. At the end of the presentation, a senior executive said: “If what you say is true, then we cannot succeed as a company."

Scores of South Florida city employees, particularly police and firefighters, have recently retired in their mid to late 40s or early 50s with six-figure pensions, the result of generous pay and benefits packages that are now costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a year. During the real estate boom, there was plenty of money for pay raises and perks. Then it all went sour.

Much of the shareholder activism being pressed against corporations today is concerned not with protecting shareholders' general interests, but rather advancing the specific interests of a small cohort of shareholders who have concerns that go beyond maximizing their investments.

Why ditching your fancy, organic, locavore lifestyle is good for the world's poor.

Americans believe that bold action to restrict spending is necessary to stabilize the finances of state government. Last month, in a wide-ranging national survey of 1,000 randomly selected, registered voters, and in 10 polls in individual states each with 400 respondents, my polling company found that voters strongly favor measures to pare the compensation of current and future public employees. They strongly oppose higher... More

New legislation would authorize the Securities and Exchange Commission to broaden the requirements for disclosure of municipal bond issues. Under current law, the SEC only regulates issuers like cities and states indirectly, through its jurisdiction over underwriters and through the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws.

Pundits have blamed Prop. 13 for everything from the state’s plummeting education performance to its chronic deficits to the quality of its infrastructure. But three decades on, Prop. 13 remains overwhelmingly popular, regularly polling support in the 60 percent range.

States with Democratic-controlled legislatures and powerful public sector unions have a higher risk of bankruptcy according to a new study by Harvard researchers.

A glut of anything is a misallocation of resources. That applies to higher education just as it applies to everything else.

Our corporate tax code looks like an abstract painting, and the closer you examine it, the more it simply looks like a mess. Replacing this mess with a well-designed corporate tax code would do much to reinvigorate the U.S. economy and spur job growth.

High-speed rail lines rarely pay their way. Britain’s government should ditch its plan to build one.

The economics of what an Afghanistan at peace would look like must be a critical part of any negotiations.One main objective should be to transform Afghanistan’s vast underground economy, which has thrived, despite the large number of NATO forces, by creating profitable opportunities for those involved in the fighting to reintegrate back into the economy.

New York's political and business leaders should stop saying that the city is "repairing" or "restoring" its skyline, language that obscures what al-Qaeda terrorists took — permanently — from New York. WTC developer Larry Silverstein has done a heroic job of building something. The new buildings will serve their purpose of providing downtown with Class-A office space.But they do not restore what was lost.... More

The secret of bigger benefits, and the truth about the Social Security agency's bottom line.

What do pundits crave more, broad influence or money in the bank? If it’s influence Glenn Beck values most, maybe he should have stayed at Fox News, where, even on a bad night, he drew more than 1 million viewers, and where just about everything he said or did seemed to make ripples. But if money is the goal, then...

When companies are over-leveraged, they respond either with a debt-for-equity swap or with a debt exchange offer that reduces the face value of the bonds. While these reorganizations are difficult to negotiate, they have the potential to make both creditors and debtors better off. Even the most conservative estimates put the cost of such financial distress at 15 percent of a company’s value. If we were to apply similar figures... More

Soak-the-rich taxes have a way of becoming people’s taxes, soaking those who never expected to pay.

Recently, a number of commentators have proposed a sharp, contained bout of inflation as a way to reduce debt and reenergize growth in the United States and the rest of the industrial world. Are they right?

For GOP pols, tort reform is a stump speech perennial. Yet, like the weather, Republicans always talk about tort reform but never do anything about it. But lawyers who annually siphon billions from the economy know that Perry is just crazy enough to actually push it through because he already has.

Judging business people by how much wealth they give away--rather than how much they create--is putting the cart before the horse. Wealth is the only thing that can reduce poverty and the most dramatic reductions in poverty have come from creating new wealth, not redistributing wealth.

How did New York distribute the special tax-free bonds created by the federal government to help in the rebuilding effort after 9-11?

A student at one of my talks on the nonprofit sector asked if I could name a for-profit company that was making a difference on the scale that nonprofits do. I said I'd be hard-pressed to name one that wasn't.Our youth are growing up with the strange notion that the only way to make a big difference in this world, or to be of service, is to work for a nonprofit organization, or become the next Bill Gates and establish a... More

Although unions may be good for a worker, singular, they are not always good for workers, plural. Especially when it comes to finding a job. That’s the evidence from an experiment that President Franklin Roosevelt inadvertently set in train when he signed the basis of modern labor law, the Wagner Act of 1935.

Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner says the state liquor control board's wine vending machines, a wonderful illustration of what happens when a government monopoly tries to act more like a business, are operating at a loss, costing taxpayers more than $1 million since they were introduced a year ago.

The former Utah governor’s proposal, part of a comprehensive jobs program that also called for regulatory relief and supported new free trade agreements, would neither cut taxes nor raise revenue. To use the parlance of tax wonks, it would be revenue-neutral.

Up until the late 1950s, the labor-force participation rate of black teens and adults was equal to or greater than their white counterparts. In fact, in 1910, 71 percent of black males older than 9 were employed, compared with 51 percent for whites.How might one explain yesteryear's lower black unemployment and greater labor force participation?

It’s hard to find an economist who questions the relationship between the minimum wage and employment, specifically, that a higher minimum wage reduces employment opportunities for young, low-skilled and inexperienced workers. After all, this is Economics 101. The impact of price changes and volumes of economic studies over nearly seven decades affirm this negative relationship. The president, however, has found just such... More