Last year, legislators in Illinois passed a law that decreases pension benefits for public employees, and in Detroit a bankruptcy judge required municipal employees to get in line with other creditors owed money by the bankrupt city. The focus on these trouble spots feeds a misperception that public pensions, generally, are in crisis. In reality, […]

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(Source: Bloomberg) Every January, our global corporate and financial executive superstars, accompanied by assorted heads of state and deep thinkers, make the trek up the Alps to the Swiss village of Davos. They don’t come to party, though they do their share of imbibing. They come instead to “solve” the world’s problems. The world faces […]

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When it comes to trade policy, President Barack Obama is mimicking the same policies he criticized when he served in the Senate. As a presidential candidate, Obama promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), recognizing the enormous loss of domestic jobs caused by its passage 20 years ago. He sure hasn’t done […]

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(Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen | Source: Reuters) Under incoming Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen, the United States Federal Reserve Bank will begin to “taper” its program of “Quantitative Easing” or “QE.” Under QE, the Fed every month buys billions of U.S. Treasury bonds and other securities from the big banks. QE keeps down longer-term […]

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Half a century ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared a “War on Poverty.” That war would soon make a real difference. In the decade following its 1964 launch, our official poverty rate dropped from 19 to 11.2 percent. But that progress stalled in the 1970s, and a profound economic insecurity now afflicts the vast majority of […]

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