Infrastructure And The Economy

The Wall Street Journal had an article on July 17-18 titled “Roads to Ruin: Towns Rip Up the Pavement.” The story highlights the practice of converting paved roads to gravel instead of repaving them in order to save money. This is yet another example of our (national) inability to maintain our infrastructure. I believe that …

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Economic Impact Of Policies

On May 18 The Wall Street Journal had an article on a new lead-paint law titled “New Lead-Paint Law Heavy on Budgets.” This law serves as a good example of an important issue I wrote of in my May 2009 article “America’s Economic Future – ‘Greenfield’ or ‘Brownfield’?” In that article I wrote of the …

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Largest Employers

Crain’s recently came out with their list of the largest Chicago-area employers.  What I found notable was that the top 5 employers are various government entities (federal, state and local). Of course, this situation is not unique to the Chicago area.  Many states have a large percentage of their total jobs as government jobs. While …

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America’s Economic Future

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here is a passage from Larry Summers’ March 13, 2009 speech that speaks of the importance of economic strength in achieving broader societal goals: “Our single most important priority is bringing about economic recovery and ensuring that the next economic expansion, unlike it’s predecessors, is fundamentally sound and not …

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Tax Breaks And The Economic Greenfield vs. Economic Brownfield Concept

Here is a recent story from BusinessWeek, “Will Tax Breaks Boost Jobs?” As seen in my article (with italics added for emphasis) “America’s Economic Future – ‘Greenfield’ or ‘Brownfield’ ?” “One way to determine whether an economic “greenfield” environment exists is whether businesses are thriving and multiplying naturally – with an indicator being that they are choosing …

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An Economic Brownfield Facet

I am posting a letter from Guy Haselmann, as I believe it is very well-written and illustrates how actions can promote an Economic Brownfield environment.   My comments will follow the letter: __ To the Editor, May 6, 2009 The Obama administration is creating the next future crisis. Their handling of the Chrysler situation is irresponsible, …

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In Ben We Trust?

I will comment frequently on Ben Bernanke, due to his position, but perhaps more importantly, because of his stated theories, beliefs, and ideologies.  It seems to me that the handling of The Financial Crisis certainly has the “fingerprints” of Ben Bernanke all over it.  In fact, I believe that perhaps no other person’s ideologies have ever played …

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Perverse Effects

I saw this story in The Wall Street Journal a few days ago, titled “The New Resume: Dumb and Dumber” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124328878436252195.html It says a lot about our current economic climate when people feel compelled to understate their credentials in order to appear more attractive for available positions. While it is unknown as to how widespread this type …

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