13 | July | 2012

Saturday, May 25, 2013

From today’s WSJ editorial “The Shale Gas Secret“: “One of the few bright patches in the Obama economy is the booming production of shale gas and, increasingly, oil. The U.S. ranked 159th in GDP growth last year. But in natural … read more >

Pethokoukis

Top 20% pay 94% of income taxes. Bottom 40%? Nada, zilch, zippo

James Pethokoukis | July 13, 2012, 4:02 pm

Just how progressive does the U.S. income tax code need to be to satisfy the redistributionists? Not only do the top 20% pay almost all the taxes, but the share of taxes paid by the top 1% has increased from 18.4% … read more >

Carpe Diem

Markets in Everything: London Taxi Hotel

Mark J. Perry | July 13, 2012, 2:06 pm

“Hail-a-Hotel” In preparation for the summer Olympics, London is getting creative. David Weekes, a full-time cab driver has transformed his cab into a hotel for one, available to rent for £50 (US$78.50) per night. The taxi comes with a “memory … read more >

Politics and Public Opinion, Elections

What’s so bad about outsourcing?

Marc Thiessen | July 13, 2012, 1:20 pm

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are duking it out on the campaign trail over outsourcing. Obama is running ads claiming Romney was a “pioneer of outsourcing” at Bain Capital and that he is running for “outsourcer-in-chief.” Romney, for his part, … read more >

Foreign and Defense Policy

Best of the Foreign Policy Blogs (July 7-13)

Marc Thiessen | July 13, 2012, 1:01 pm

Here is the best of what AEI’s foreign and defense policy scholars are reading this week: Thomas Joscelyn at the Long War Journal reports on a Bin Laden loyalist transferred from Guantanamo to Sudan John Hudson at the Atlantic Wire … read more >

Carpe Diem

The law of unintended consequences confirmed. Again.

Mark J. Perry | July 13, 2012, 11:45 am

From the article “Effect of Abuse-Deterrent Formulation of OxyContin,” published in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine: “In August 2010, an abuse-deterrent formulation of the widely abused prescription opioid OxyContin was introduced. The intent was to … read more >

Economics, Monetary Policy

Negative interest rates ‘the norm’ in Europe?

Alex J. Pollock | July 13, 2012, 11:30 am

Now Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, France and the Netherlands have all experienced some interest rates below zero. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Richard Barley suggests that “negative yields may be becoming the norm.” That is a long way from … read more >

Pethokoukis

Did the 2009 stimulus really perform just as Team Obama expected?

James Pethokoukis | July 13, 2012, 11:29 am

I, and others, have given the Obama administration a lot of flak for its early 2009 prediction that its $800 billion stimulus plan would drive the unemployment rate to under 6% by 2012. The fact that unemployment is over 8% … read more >

Economics, U.S. Economy

The Left refuses to face facts on Fannie and Freddie’s role in the financial crisis

Peter J. Wallison | July 13, 2012, 10:55 am

They are truly crazed. The Left just can’t stand any challenge to their narrative about the financial crisis and will go to absurd lengths to prevent views different from their own from getting exposure. Below is a “review” on Amazon.com … read more >

Politics and Public Opinion, Polls

Who better understands the economy?

Karlyn Bowman | July 13, 2012, 10:29 am

In almost all polls, President Obama gets more negative than positive marks on handling the economy. In most polls, the president and Mitt Romney are evenly matched on handling the issue. The new late May CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll asks … read more >