Obama’s Outstanding Non-recovery
Where are the jobs? That’s the first question we should be asking in what’s now become the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression — or, more precisely, the...
About: Ralph R. Reiland
Posts by Ralph R. Reiland
“You Didn’t Build That” Collectivism
I got an e-mail last week from a former student who was reacting to President Obama’s comment that "you didn't build that." The student described his own individual achievement,...
“You Didn’t Build That” and Income Redistribution
President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comment has become a top campaign issue. Romney called Obama’s remark “extraordinarily revealing,” an unveiling of “an ideology that somehow says it’s the...
Obama’s Anti-jobs, Anti-business Tax Agenda
“The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession, because that would just suck up, take more demand out of the...
Defining “Fairness” as Equality
What happens when we define "fairness" as equality? Do we increase the productivity, output, and overall standard of living in society by treating the most successful as undeserving and...
Obama’s Way Off Base About the Private Sector
There’s a political ad that’s hard to miss. It shows President Obama at a recent news conference saying “the private sector is doing fine.” The Obama campaign says the...
“The Answer My Friend Is Blowin’ in the Wind”?
As the kites in Ocean City, New Jersey, became airborne, protesters on the boardwalk waved American flags and told the pro-wind crowd to go fly a kite while unfurling...
Jobs and “the Rich”
One community organizer who unsuccessfully protested against the construction of a new, $30 million mansion claimed that "no one needs a house that big." But who will be the...
Occupying for a Failed Ideology
“I think the disruption added to the excitement of the evening,” said a fellow attendee at the recent Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty Award Dinner as we were...
Deadbeat Economics in Europe
Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Italy (and California). In each case, the promise of more bailouts and a steady flow of cheap money only produced more reckless behavior, excessive...
Bunnies, Jobs, and Better Security
It would be funny if we weren't paying for it. Now they want us to buy chaperones for our live-wire Secret Service guys. Per year, we already spend $1.7...
Obama Pitches “Buffett Rule” Tax Hike
Campaigning to make economic “fairness” the central theme of his reelection campaign, President Obama on April 10 pitched his “Buffett Rule” tax hike to a student audience at Florida...
Media Unreliability in Zimmerman-Martin Case
"A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar," said Mark Twain. ...
Hey! Mullahs! Leave Them Iraqi Emos Alone
No posse of morality cops ever smashed Bob Dylan's skull with concrete blocks when he changed America's music from "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza...
A Slice of Life on the Wackier Side
Every week, I think it can't get any crazier — and then it does. ...
Phones, Jobs & Folly
I wasn't surprised by the latest report from the Commerce Department that shows the U.S. trade deficit, the excess of imports over exports, had jumped in January to the...
Pie-in-the-Sky Energy Planning
“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe,” said Dr. Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence National Laboratory, in...
America’s Worst Anti-business Climates
Here’s a headline that’s sure not to boost investment and job creation in Pennsylvania: “Wyoming First, Pennsylvania Worst In Business Taxes.” ...
Hikes in Gas Price Eclipse Payroll Tax Cut
The Washington politicians were in full self-congratulatory form recently when the Republicans and Democrats in Congress finally displayed a moment of bipartisanship and passed the payroll tax cut extension...
An Anti-jobs, Anti-growth “Budget”
The Washington crowd can’t be bothered with budgets anymore — at least not in the dictionary sense of the word, as in (a) something cheap, i.e., a budget coat,...