Nicole Gelinas, New York Post

Extravagance At Ground Zero - 10/29/12

Government spent liberally to rebuild the site destroyed by terrorists, and now residents of the greater New York area will be paying for the project for decades to come.

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Joel Kotkin, City Journal

Rise of Third Coast - 10/29/12

From Brownsville to Tampa Bay, an economic powerhouse emerges.

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Simon Johnson, Bloomberg

Conservatives: Break Up Banks - 10/29/12

The true conservative agenda should be to take government out of banking by making all financial institutions small enough and simple enough to fail. As George Will asks, “Should the government be complicit in protecting -- and by doing so, enlarging -- huge economic interests?”

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Steve Yoder, FiscalTimes

More Mortgage Walk-Aways - 10/26/12

A survey early last year by three economists estimated that the proportion of strategic walkaways rose from 26 percent of all defaults in March 2009 to 35 percent in September 2010. With 15.3 million homeowners (or 31 percent of all homeowners) now paying on houses that are underwater, hundreds of thousands more people may have plans to abandon mortgages that they could continue to pay. More

Daniel Gros, Project Syndicate

Why Isn't Europe Fracking? - 10/26/12

The global energy community is abuzz with excitement about hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a newish technology that has opened formerly inaccessible reserves of gas trapped in underground shale formations. The boom in this so-called shale-gas production has allowed the United States to become almost self-sufficient in natural gas. Europe, by contrast, is clearly lagging.

 

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Alasdair Roberts, Bloomberg

The 1840 Fiscal Cliff - 10/25/12

The U.S. is quickly approaching a“fiscal cliff,” a combination of scheduled tax increases and automatic spending cuts that could seriously disrupt the economy. It’s a grim situation, but not an unprecedented one. The country has tottered on the edge of a similar budgetary precipice before -- and barely averted a national calamity.

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Mark Mills, Forbes

Ripple-Out Economy - 10/25/12

For every direct hydrocarbon job created, another six jobs are created in the economy from manufacturing and education, to health care and information services.

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Jeremy Rozansky, City Journal

What Austerity Looks Like - 10/23/12

Bankrupt San Bernardino’s new, skeletal government.

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Arthur E. Foulkes, Freeman

Free Trade Magic - 10/23/12

Free trade gets a bad rap from domestic producers and protectionists of all sorts. But nothing is more important to a growing, dynamic economy than allowing the basic human right to freely and peacefully exchange with others.

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Stephen Ohlemacher , Associated Press

Workers Face Jan. Jolt - 10/22/12

Come January, 163 million workers can expect to feel the pinch of a big tax increase regardless of who wins the election.

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Yevgeniy Feyman, Washington Examiner

Taxes: New American Exceptionalism - 10/22/12

The incentive for investing abroad rather than at home is already embedded in the American system. We are  one of only seven OECD countries with a system that taxes a corporation's worldwide profits at the domestic rate.

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Zachary Goldfarb, Washington Post

CEOs Fear Fiscal Cliff - 10/19/12

The largest U.S. financial firms warned Thursday of dire consequences if Washington fails to head off year-end tax hikes and spending cuts, saying they could jolt the economy into recession and prompt a new and dangerous downgrade of the U.S. credit rating.

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Adam Ozimek, Forbes

Government and 15-Hour Work Week - 10/19/12

Given more time and freedom most Americans would elect to spend it in ways that the very same liberals who argue for 15 work weeks would find objectionable and wasteful.

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Clark Whelton, City Journal

Amtrak: Jobs Program - 10/19/12

The federally subsudized train line losses $80 million a year on food service. When critics suggested it could privatize food service and turn a profit, a Democratic congressman complained about, "trading good-paying jobs for cheaper hamburgers.”

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Nicole Gelinas, City Journal

The Problem with Four Sore Years - 10/18/12

Mitt Romney should acknowledge that our economic problems span presidential administrations.

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Damian Paletta, Wall Street Journal

China A Punching Bag - 10/18/12

By repeatedly taking swipes at China during Tuesday's debate, President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney apparently calculated that the political benefits would outweigh the potential costs of irritating a major trade and diplomatic partner.

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Diana Furchgott-Roth, National Review

Debate and the Wage Gap - 10/17/12

We hear it over and over again: the myth of the wage gap. In Tuesday’s presidential debate, Katherine Fenton asked President Obama what he intended to do about “women making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn.” Just one problem: Women make about 95 percent of what their male counterparts earn, if the male counterparts are in the same job with the same experience.

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Daniel DiSalvo, Manhattan Institute

Unions and California's Budget Woes - 10/16/12

In the initiative process, California public-sector unions have played a big role in pushing for higher taxes and thwarting reform. Public-sector unions have taken a position on 42 percent of the 178 ballot initiatives over the last 30 years. Voters ratified nearly half the measures they supported, and 75 percent of the measures that the unions opposed were defeated.

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Nancy Kaffer , Detroit Free Press

A Peak Into City Bankruptcy - 10/16/12

Municipal bankrputcy is often nothing new for troubled cities. Litigation abounds, contracts are still difficult to cancel, employee benefits are often guaranteed by law.

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Marita Noon, Townhall.com

With Energy Excess Comes Security - 10/15/12

America’s new-found wealth in natural resources—specifically oil and natural gas—means that we can have energy security—which comes from having excess; more than we need so we can export. If we truly want energy independence which every president since Nixon has espoused, then isolationism is the wrong approach.

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Matthew Ladner, Friedman Foundation

Choice Via Education Savings Accounts - 10/15/12