Efforts are underway by the Taiwan government for a government led restructuring to avoid bankruptcy (Plan to stop Taiwan’s high-speed rail going bust set for review). Since opening in 2007, this privately financed and operated system has been plagued with ridership well below projections. The Taiwan experience is consistent with the research showing that ridership on high-speed rail lines has been frequently over-projected.
There have been frequent press reports that baby boomers, those born between 1945 and 1964, are abandoning the suburbs and moving “back” to the urban cores (actually most suburban residents did not move from urban cores). Virtually without exception such stories are based on anecdotes, often gathered by reporters stationed in Manhattan, downtown San Francisco or Washington or elsewhere in urban cores around the nation. Clearly, the anecdotes about boomers who move to suburbs, exurbs, or to outside major metropolitan areas are not readily accessible (and perhaps not as interesting) to the downtown media.
Economics · Featured · FIRE · Liberty · Politics · Regulation
JOIN US: In this new book, Forbes Media Chairman and Editor In Chief Steve Forbes explains that today’s wrong-headed monetary policies are setting the stage for a new global economic and social catastrophe that could rival the recent financial crisis and even the horrors of the 1930s.
It is often truly astonishing to me the harm done by the way the federal government was expanded well beyond its constitutional limits during the 1930’s New Deal era. One[…]
Featured · FIRE · Government
For every 100 mortgages being sold in the United States these days, at least 95 of them have government backing. We’re told America has a free-market economy? Not judging by the government’s involvement in housing, arguably the most important market there is. Most people can go years without needing health care. A healthy adult can go weeks without food. We cannot go one day without needing shelter.
Want to see more people with jobs? End the minimum wage. The problem isn’t merely that minimum wages reduce demand for workers, especially those who have little or no[…]
A truly free market economy is one that tends to have the “good deflation,” and we should look forward to it.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Podcast
Steve Stanek says the most recent federal budget deal is meaningless! It’s a scam, a sham, a fraud! Congress hasn’t had an actual budget since 2009, and they barely have one now.
Featured · Legal Affairs · Politics
In the race to the financial bottom the State of Illinois vies nicely with several other states, including (depending on the precise year involved) California, New York, and Ohio, with[…]
The latest edition of The Heartland Institute’s Author Series featured Hester Peirce of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. One of the most-knowledgeable scholars in America on finance policy, Hester[…]
Budgets/Taxes · Education · Environment/Energy · FIRE
If you’re not regularly visiting the Heartlander digital magazine, you’re missing out on some of the best work from The Heartland Institute, one of America’s most influential free-market think tanks. Heartland[…]
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Education · Environment/Energy · Internet/Telecom · Legal Affairs · Podcast · Politics
You’re a reader of this blog, so you are a part of the conversation at The Heartland Institute, one of America’s most influential free-market think tanks. The posts here reflect the exchange[…]
Budgets/Taxes · Education · Environment/Energy · FIRE · Health Care · Internet/Telecom · Legal Affairs · Liberty · Taxes
You’re a reader of this blog, so you are a part of the conversation at The Heartland Institute, one of America’s most influential free-market think tanks. The posts here reflect the[…]
Budgets/Taxes · Education · Environment/Energy · Health Care · Internet/Telecom · Podcast
We’ve got some good stuff for you this week, as always — in all six of our primary topic areas. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes for the latest in[…]
Budgets/Taxes · Environment/Energy · FIRE · Health Care · Internet/Telecom · Podcast
We’ve got some good stuff for you this week, as always — in all six of our primary topic areas. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes for the latest in[…]
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Education · Environment/Energy · FIRE · Internet/Telecom · Podcast
We’ve got some good stuff for you this week, as always — in all six of our primary topic areas. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes for the latest in[…]
This is an important paper on the pros and cons of clearing of derivatives traded over the counter from the ISDA (International Swaps and Derivatives Association). Craig Pirrong is a first[…]
Some folks at The Heartland Institute’s home office thought my little email exchange about Keynesian vs. Austrian economics, the Federal Reserve, etc., with Dick Ewing of Winthrop, Wash., worth publishing[…]
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