01 | October | 2012

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Overall job growth in the U.S. has been stubbornly sluggish over the last few years, and total payroll employment in August of this year was still almost five million jobs, and 3.4%, below the peak level of payroll jobs at … read more >

Image Credit: Medill DC (Flickr) (CC BY 2.0)

Economics, Monetary Policy, Pethokoukis

Would Milton Friedman really have approved of Ben Bernanke’s QEternity plan?

James Pethokoukis | October 1, 2012, 4:15 pm

A fascinating and instructive speech today on monetary policy from Ben Bernanke. The Fed chairman attempted to calm concerns about his open-ended bond-buying plan. Bernanke denied he was enabling Big Government by monetizing the debt. Bernanke denied his actions would lead to … read more >

Image Credit: Adam Jones (Flickr) (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Foreign and Defense Policy, Middle East and North Africa

Black Monday in Iran: Free fall of the rial

Ali Alfoneh | October 1, 2012, 3:54 pm

Iranians are getting poorer by the hour. Monday morning, the Iranian public woke up to news of further decline in the value of the rial against the dollar. According to BBC Persian, the rial plunged to 34,500 rial to the … read more >

Image Credit: USDA gov (Flickr) (CC BY 2.0)

Economics, Energy and the Environment

EPA’s attempt to over-regulate thwarted by its own people

Kenneth P. Green | October 1, 2012, 1:34 pm

The U.S. EPA has never been shy about expanding its powers, but they’ve never been as shamelessly transparent about it as they have under the reign of Administrator Lisa Jackson. Her latest power grab has the agency’s own science reviewers … read more >

Image Credit: Pete Souza, White House Flickr Stream

Foreign and Defense Policy, Terrorism

Premature exoneration: When exactly did the intelligence community change its assessment of the Libya attack?

Marc Thiessen | October 1, 2012, 11:37 am

Late Friday, the office of the director of national intelligence put out a statement that appeared to exonerate the Obama administration for claiming that the Libya attack was the result of spontaneous protests and not an organized terrorist attack. Shawn … read more >

Foreign and Defense Policy

Dear Mitt Romney. About that WSJ piece. Part 2.

Danielle Pletka | October 1, 2012, 11:11 am

Dear Mitt Romney, More on that WSJ piece. You can’t beat something with nothing, and your op-ed this morning was way too light on substance and vision. Allow me to be useful. The Middle East is on fire, in part because Barack Obama … read more >

Economics, Pethokoukis

Is the U.S. economy on the right track? 3 charts give a worrisome answer

James Pethokoukis | October 1, 2012, 10:57 am

We had a flurry of bad economic news last week. And we have a critical — both economically and politically — jobs report coming up Friday. So I thought I would pull back the camera a bit and look where … read more >

Image Credit: Gage Skidmore (Flickr) (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Foreign and Defense Policy

Dear Mitt Romney. About that WSJ piece. Part 1.

Danielle Pletka | October 1, 2012, 10:43 am

Dear Mitt Romney, About that WSJ piece. I don’t write to you often, I know you’re really slammed right now. But listen: Events in the Middle East aren’t “disturbing.” There is a tide sweeping across the region that has the potential … read more >