Daily Archives: June 4, 2012
A Social Security disability crisis
The latest Bloomberg Businessweek documents Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn‘s efforts to highlight the problems associated with the swelling ranks (23 percent growth since 2007) of Americans collecting Social Security disability payments. Fewer than 1 percent of those who begin collecting disability go back to work, government statistics show. Meanwhile, periodic reviews meant to ensure thatContinue Reading
TIME tackles Walker and Wisconsin
The latest TIME explains that a union-led recall effort against Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, could turn out with a much different result than Walker’s critics had expected. Walker’s survival would be a blow to his union opponents, who sought his removal not just as retribution but also to demonstrate their clout in “an eraContinue Reading
A ‘robber baron’ and his positive impact for consumers
John Steele Gordon shares with Barron’s readers an interesting history lesson. Before the 1824 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Gibbons v. Ogden, New York granted a monopoly on steamboat navigation to Robert Fulton and the “politically well-connected and immensely rich” Robert Livingston. “As with all monopolies,” Gordon writes, “the Fulton-Livingston enterprise was high-priced, lazy, andContinue Reading
Because central planning has such a great track record
Think China’s economic progress is bound to leave the United States in the dust? Perhaps Jim McTague‘s latest “D.C. Current” column in Barron’s will offer you a good reason to re-evaluate your assumptions. Despite the success of China’s experiments in free-market capitalism, the top-cat communists running the show in Beijing can’t resist the temptation toContinue Reading