In The WSJ, Stephen Moore mocks Keynesian economics.
At COAL, Paul Krugman responds.
On YouTube, Charles DeGaulle foresees debt problems and monetary instability stemming from the dollar standard (h/t: TGSN):
The NY Sun suggests Lew Lehrman is the intellectual heir to DeGaulle advisor Jacques Rueff.
On Gold Money, French journalist Pierre Jovanovic discusses DeGaulle, Bretton Woods and gold.
Scotland’s Herald weighs the pros and cons of the gold standard.
At The American, Alex Pollock notes the dollar’s weakness against gold and other currencies since the 1971 Nixon Shock.
On RCM, John Tamny defends Gov. Rick Perry’s (TX) Fed comments.
The WSJ defends Perry’s job creation record.
In RCM, Robert Tracinski suggests Nixon, not Rick Perry, is responsible for politicizing the Fed.
On Fox Business News, Steve Forbes discusses banks, Warren Buffett, and the dollar:
At Forbes, Peter Ferrara rebuts Buffett’s tax-hike advocacy.
In The Financial Times, Chris Caldwell analyzes Buffett’s argument.
On CNS News, Matt Cover notes Buffett’s tax solution won’t solve the deficit
(h/t: Ralph Benko).
From The American, Tino Sanandaji and Arvid Malm debunk soak-the-rich claims.
The WSJ discounts the incentive effect of the President’s one-year payroll tax cut extension.
The biggest problem with Mr. Obama’s payroll tax cut is that it’s temporary. Employers hire workers based on their business needs and the costs of each new employee. They aren’t likely to add workers based on lower tax costs if they know those costs are going to rise in a year. That’s especially true when employers also know that ObamaCare is going to raise their cost of hiring in 2013.
Mr. Obama’s payroll break is also only an indirect hiring incentive because it goes to the worker, not the employer who does the hiring. The President’s Keynesians see the tax cut mainly as one more stimulus to boost consumer spending, and thus economic demand. As the President recently explained, the idea is to “put $1,000 in the pockets of American workers.”
At Fiscal Times, Bruce Bartlett explains that in addition to marginal tax rates, income thresholds for high tax rates matters too.
On Larry Kudlow’s radio show, Sen. Jim DeMint (SC) discusses extension of the one-year payroll tax cut (around 39 minutes). Also, Larry notes the 22:1 oil-to-gold ratio and suggests gold may be overpriced; if the Fed doesn’t initiate QE3 at this week’s Aspen conference, look for it to drop.
In The WSJ, Allysia Finley notes Gov. Mitt Romney’s (MA) opposition to tax cuts for the rich.
At The Washington Times, Nita Ghei suggests the world has learned from the Smoot-Hawley mistake.
On Forbes, Bill Flax critiques Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz’s Keynesian prescriptions.
From AP, Tom Raum explains that recession is the deficit’s main cause.
From The Washington Post, Ezra Klein suggests today’s sound money advocates are equivalent to 1937 opponents of monetary easing.
On TNR, Jonathan Chait critiques Jude Wanniski’s analysis of how WW II started.