The carnival in Rio de Janeiro from February 13 through the 17th was one heck of a party. It was celebrated by the locals, plus an estimated one million visitors, complete with fabulous parades, street parties and balls. Brazil is blessed with some great beaches, the most famous of which is Ipanema, thanks to the 1962 bossa nova classic “Girl from Ipanema”.
Economics · Environment/Energy · Featured
Last time we checked on Tesla Motors – as 2014 closed – we noted a growing skepticism largely due to CEO Elon Musk’s consistent habit of overpromising production and results, without delivering.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
Thursday is for freedom a very bad day. That is the day the free speech-free market Xanadu that is the Internet will be unilaterally seized by the Barack Obama Administration.
Per the President’s demand, the allegedly independent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is pretending to be Congress – and writing new Web-regulating law for themselves. And on Thursday they will vote on it – and thereby grab expansive, broad and deep overlording powers.
Featured · Health Care · Podcast
In this edition of the Heartland Daily Podcast, Research Fellow Sean Parnell sits down with Texas Public Policy Foundation’s John Davidson. Davidson discusses his latest paper, “Medicaid Expansion by Another Name,” which describes the largely unsuccessful efforts of several Republican governors to get even modest reforms of Medicaid in exchange for expanding the program under Obamacare.
The United States and Europe continue to dominate the list of strongest metropolitan areas (city) economies in the world, according to the Brookings Institution’s recently released Global Metro Monitor 2014. This is measured by gross domestic product per capita, adjusted for purchasing power parity (GDP-PPP). Brookings points out that this does not indicate personal income, but “proxies the average standard of living in an area.”
Increasingly over the past decade both federal and state governments have given special subsidies to, provided tax advantages for and mandated the use of solar energy as a solution to environmental concerns and the need for greater domestic energy independence.
Now that the overwhelming majority of Americans are educated and technology has made the knowledge of the world accessible to virtually anyone anywhere, what justification exists for the disaster that is the current government-run education system?
For governments everywhere, taxes and regulations are like Lays Potato Chips – no one can eat just one.
In part, of course, because governments’ appetite for taking our money and controlling our lives is insatiable. It’s their nature.
And because government intervention just about always makes things worse.
For the past year or so, there has been no statutory limit on how much the federal government borrows. The debt ceiling was abandoned in the last budget deal. But in the coming weeks, it is scheduled to return—along with the predictable illusion of a debate over whether to lift the ceiling or not.
Economics · Featured · Government · Internet/Telecom · Regulation
“Fixing” what’s not broken. Radically changing what everyone likes. Abandoning what works exceptionally well for what’s failed miserably in the past, and forcing outdated regulations on what is the most modern part of the economy.
“When reporters forfeit their credibility by making up stories, sources, or quotes, we are right to mock them. When their violations are significant or repeated, they should be fired,” says Charles Lipson, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. “Demanding honest reporting has nothing to do with the reporter’s politics, personality, or personal life. It is about professional standards and our reasonable expectations.”
It’s been a bad six years for the United States of America. The examples are myriad.
Not just Barack Obama, but all politicians promise to protect Medicare—even if they are robbing it to pay for ObamaCare. They don’t promise that you can keep your Medicare doctor, however.
Cape Wind, touted as “America’s first offshore wind project,” became one of America’s most high-profile and most controversial wind-energy projects. Fourteen years in the making, estimated at $2.6 billion for 130 turbines, covering 25 square miles in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Massachusetts, the Cape Wind project has yet to install one turbine—let alone produce any electricity. Now, it may be “dead in the water.”
The cromnibus version of ITFA expires this fall, just in time for the annual budget fights on Capitol Hill. First passed in 1998 as a temporary law, ITFA has been renewed for more seasons than sleeper hit shows like Arrested Development and Invader Zim.
Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow John Berlau joins The Heartland Institute’s Budget & Tax News managing editor Jesse Hathaway to talk about the U.S. Treasury Department’s recent announcement that the “auto bailout” portion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) had officially ended with the final repayment of taxpayer-funded loans to Ally Financial, formerly known as GMAC.
This is part 3 of the 8 part series establishing that the laser-focus of the Compact for America approach to organizing an Article V convention with the specific job advancing and ratifying a pre-drafted, specific federal Balanced Budget Amendment is clearly, unequivocally, and overwhelmingly what the Founders expected from the state-originated amendment process.
No folks, it’s not Bernie Sanders’ Vermont nor Jerry Brown’s California Democratic Republic that’s about to get flushed down the economic toilet. We are talking about Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela that he inherited from his predecessor Hugo Chavez.
The obvious successes of past technologies have made politicians and environmentalists eager to be in the forefront of promoting futuristic schemes for their goals. Everyone wants to be on the side of the next Great Idea. All too often these futuristic fantasies are sold to a gullible public, as well as fellow politicians and the news media, with impressive but scientifically-flawed arguments that bump up against harsh physical realities that are immutable.
Touted as “America’s first offshore wind project,” Cape Wind became one of America’s most high-profile and most controversial wind-energy projects. Fourteen years in the making, estimated at $2.6 billion for 130 turbines, covering 25 square miles in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Massachusetts, the Cape Wind project has yet to install one turbine—let alone produce any electricity.
NEWS: The Heartlander
Readable Links
