Rice County Republicans

ECONOMICS / BUSINESS
This sums it up pretty well: “Go down to Occupy Wall Street, and you’ll find a lot of cultural-studies majors who support changing systemic rules to flatten the inequality slope. Go into the financial-institution office buildings that surround them, and you’ll find a lot of math majors devising computer models for risk-weighting assets who think the people at the bottom of the slope should try harder to get into the top.”

Here is a very readable article on the limits of Keynesian policy.

The Washington Post writes an editorial which actually makes reference to the efficiency/ income conundrum. They do fall back on Arthur Okun and his call for trying to get more equity at the cost of some growth, I don’t really agree with that; I wouldn’t mind falling behind my neighbors in income growth as long as my material standard of living increased faster than it does now.

James Pethokoukis, the money and politics columnist for U.S. News & World Report writes a nice little piece over at the American Enterprise Institute blog.

Here’s very interesting analogy, although the author stretches it too far. He also restates the conventional wisdom of three possible outcomes; the world is much more complex than this and we’re deluding ourselves to believe that we can narrow the outcomes to just three, but still worth the investment of time to read.

I needed to wait until the 28th of DEC to find what is probably the best economics article of the year (at least as far as readability goes).

Rarely does the Washington Post publish an article this good, but then it is on the Opinion page and seems to be written by someone who understands finance. It’s important to remember the it was “off balance sheet” shenanigans which caused Enron to implode and regulators to over react on U.S. listed businesses by passing Sarbanes-Oxley. Maybe those same regulators should spend more time looking at the unsustainable “off balance sheet” liabilities of the Federal Government.

GENERAL INTEREST
Here’s a nice opinion piece from the Star Tribune on Hamline University and Tom Emmer.

Spin can be tough. Here’s where spin crossed the line. The biggest lie of 2011 goes to……….

I always find it odd that some people think it’s a bad thing when Congress doesn’t pass a bunch of unnecessary laws or burdensome regulation.

Nobel Award winning economist famously said: “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” I wish the Sunset Commission the best of luck.

The money wars with the Democrats.

80 percent of the respondents of likely Iowa caucus goers selected either “the economy and jobs,” “the size and role of the federal government” or the “national debt and the deficit” as their major issue. Very similar to everywhere else this cycle would be my guess.

My daughter’s Brownie troop folded and she seems to have moved on to other things. this is just as well, as I’m not sure I’d be able to support her continued participation in this organization.

Enjoy,
Stephen Kallestad
Northfield

ECONOMICS / BUSINESS
Gallop does a survey to figure out who the 1% are (and by extension who the other 99% are). Unsurprisingly it found that the two groups are very similar except in educational attainment. But then no one should be shocked that M.D. heart specialist or business executive with an MBA makes multiple times what a high school graduate factory worker does.

Here’s an article by John Stossel on an excellent organization called the Job Creator’s Alliance.

About time! And once they put the ex-Fannie, Freddie CEOs away for a very long time, maybe we can look at dismantling the systemic problem behind them and return to market driven mortgages where lending institution don’t make loans and then off-load them to institutions that are implicitly backed by the full faith and confidence of the taxpayers of America. This by extension will limit the ability of policy makers to try and steer the housing market for political gain.

In his most recent column, George Will mentions the Institute for Justice; on of those exemplary organizations protecting the Rights of individuals against the intrusions of the State.

GENERAL INTEREST
A wonderful little article entitled, “The Political Implications of Ignoring Our Own Ignorance,” in which the author briefly examines how peoples failure to understand how little they or others might know leads them to incorrect conclusions on the ability of government or policy makers to get it right.

When given a choice maybe teachers are less excited about their unions than the union leadership would lead us to believe.

Iowa is still completely up in the air.

Gary Hart (remember him) writes a stunningly lucid and accurate editorial in the New York Times.

What an embarrassment to Minnesota!  I’m glad I can say I live in John Kline’s district.

Enjoy,
Stephen Kallestad
Northfield

ECONOMICS / BUSINESS
I’m a big fan of Prof. Roberts over at GMU. I find myself in agreement of his point in this brief article.

A very interesting paper entitled: “Hayek and the 21st Century Boom-Bust and Recession-Recovery” (you may wish to print it -25 pages)

GENERAL INTEREST
I’m starting to get a lot of information, on the latest GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich, like this from pro-gun groups.

Here’s what happens when you let bad policy (Keynesian stimulus disguised as a tax cut) occur. You may get yourself caught between trying to explain the nuances of good and bad tax cuts and your principles.

It took a court order, but Dayton’s attempted pay-off to his Union handlers has been, at least temporarily, thwarted.

An interesting poll: so what shows do you watch?

It’s seems to be a fundamental belief – regardless of what the economic consequences may be, or even regardless if the government has any use for the money – that people should only be allowed to keep the amount of their own earnings that politicians think they should. Implicit to this belief, if they realize it or not is the proposition that we lack free will and are all just slaves to “society.”

“Occupy” and the problem they present for Democrats.

Here’s some interesting insider GOP politics.

Enjoy,

Stephen Kallestad

Northfield