ChrisBanescu.com

by Lachlan Markay – Innovation and market disruption can be powerful forces for economic growth. But government involvement in the market tends to be a force against disruption, and hence a force against innovation. The drive to protect the dominant companies – often justified in the name of job preservation — prevents success for companies [...]

With unemployment still above 9 percent, Americans are searching for answers that will lead to quality, lasting jobs. Past failures of jobs programs show that addressing the symptom instead of the disease has yet to lead to real job growth. Instead of talking about jobs programs, what needs to be discussed is how to provide [...]

by IBD Editorials – Success: Away from the low growth and high regulation of an America under Washington’s thumb, our northern neighbor is economically strong. As 2011 ends, Canada has announced yet another tax cut — and will soar even more. The Obama administration and its economic czars have flailed about for years, baffled about [...]

by J.R. Dunn – Crony capitalism is the most serious current danger to the American community, a threat not simply to government or the economy, but to our very way of life. It is the worst such threat since the trusts and monopolies of the early 20th century, and in much the same way. Cronyism [...]

by Tom McClintock – The government’s continuing failure to address our nation’s gut-wrenching unemployment stems from a fundamental disagreement over how jobs are created in the first place. We are now in the third year of policies predicated on the assumption that government spending creates jobs. We have squandered three years and trillions of dollars [...]

by Ron Ross – It’s now clear that the federal government’s massive stimulus spending has not achieved its objectives. Why hasn’t it? It’s important that we have answers to that question. The stimulus was premised on the economic model known as Keynesianism: the intellectual legacy of the late English economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynesianism doesn’t [...]

America is in grave danger. Our government’s out-of-control spending and our politicians’ refusal to implement meaningful budget reforms are leading us towards a fiscal crisis that can undermine our very way of life. We are spending ourselves into oblivion. With each passing day, we are $5 billion in deficit spending closer to the edge of [...]

Conservatives warned about it, economists predicted it, and now it’s here. Inflation has arrived and it’s taking off like a rocket. IBD reports that wholesale prices, often a precursor to consumer prices, rose at an yearly rate of 8% in February. The story warns: “Food prices today are the highest on record, rising at double-digit [...]

Yesterday, the Senate Democrats soundly defeated the attempts by the Republicans in the House to implement a very minute cut for the 2012 federal budget. Referring to the approximately $61 billion that the GOP was recommending (a mere 1.6% when compared to the $3,700 billion budget being proposed) the Democrats “emphatically rejected a budget-slashing House [...]

by Steve McCann – Economic despair reigns in America, as stagnation and mounting debt make our future look hopeless. Yet America is uniquely positioned to rebound and recover our economic preeminence. All that is necessary is a political decision to reverse our energy policy and stimulate domestic production of hydrocarbons. From that would flow a [...]

by Jeffrey Folks – On Friday, the president wasted no time informing the country that unemployment rates had dropped from 9.8% to 9.4%. That sounds pretty good until you dig into the underlying numbers. Then it sounds dire. Despite expectations that the U.S. would add 170,000 new jobs, only 100,000 were added in December. And [...]

12/1/2010 – Rick Newman – They’re cool. That’s for sure. The Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt could turn out to be the most innovative mass-produced cars in a century. By taking some or all of their power from a household electrical outlet, they offer the first real glimpse of transportation that doesn’t rely on petroleum—and [...]

When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was enacted by Congress in February of 2009, a mere 0.899% of the funds were directed toward helping Small Businesses. Despite the fact that the Small Business sector employs over 50% of the American population, Big Business and Wall Street got most of the attention from our [...]

10/23/2010 – Tom Roberson – Bloomberg Businessweek details the complicated “Dutch Sandwich” tax strategy employed by Google to avoid the massive tax hit it would incur on overseas profits repatriated to the U.S. After reading this and seeing the lengths that U.S. companies go to protect their profits, can anyone seriously believe that taxes do [...]

10/19/2010 – IBD Editorial – Government Motors’ all-electric car isn’t all-electric and doesn’t get near the touted hundreds of miles per gallon. Like “shovel-ready” jobs, maybe there’s no such thing as “plug-ready” cars either. The Chevy Volt, hailed by the Obama administration as the electric savior of the auto industry and the planet, makes its [...]

No sooner had SpaceShipOne safely landed in the Mojave Desert, making history as the first privately-funded manned space vehicle, than government officials rekindled their desire to regulate this nascent private industry. Such concern for the safety of future space travelers is commendable but somewhat disingenuous, given Congress’ rather poor record of oversight in maintaining the [...]