Monday items: Tamny on loose money; Indiviglio on low interest rates; Goldman sees continued malaise.

From Forbes, John Tamny argues the Fed’s low interest rate policy discourages saving and makes credit tight.

In The Atlantic, David Indiviglio explains the problems with extremely low interest rates.

On The Kudlow Report, David Goldman debates the economy’s direction:



At NRO, David Beckworth argues Federal Reserve policy should target nominal GDP growth.

In Forbes, Steve Forbes interviews John Mauldin about his new book on the debt crisis.

On COAL, Paul Krugman advocates independent scoring of Paul Ryan’s tax cuts.

At The WSJ, ATR President Grover Norquist discusses the spending battle:



On NRO, Kevin Williamson notes income mobility to refute Robert Reich’s attacks on the wealthy.

At The NYT Economix blog, MIT’s Nancy Folbre advocates Democratic initiatives to address the deficit with tax increases.

In The Washington Examiner, Philip Klein posts a Democratic strategy memo on their tax increase plan.

Monday round up: Benko rebuts Bernanke on gold, Tamny explains why bailouts hurt recovery, and Steve Moore sees Republicans winning the budget debate.

On Forbes, Ralph Benko responds to Ben Bernanke’s critique of the gold standard.

Also from Forbes, John Tamny explains why bank bailouts hurt the economy.

In The WSJ, Stephen Moore suggests Republicans have won the DC budget fight so far.

From Wisconsin, Michael Moore urges class warfare rather than union benefit cuts:



From Seeking Alpha, David Beckworth argues excess liquidity, not a savings glut, caused the last decade’s credit and housing boom.

On ISI, Brian Domitrovic defends capitalism from a conservative critic.

At RCM, Larry Kudlow embraces the possibility of a government shutdown.

From The Kudlow Report, Dan Mitchell debates federal spending:



In The WSJ, Arthur Brooks suggests Americans say they want a generous government Santa but then detest big government.

At his blog, Robert Wenzel defends U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (TX) from a ridiculous critique by Fed official David Andolfatto.

On Asia Times, David Goldman posits that restricted immigration is harming the recovery.

From the archive, the IMF interviews Robert Mundell.

Wednesday items.

On Forbes, Ralph Benko skewers Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s quantitative easing plan.

At The WSJ, Michael Boskin explains the data that support tax rate cuts over spending stimulus.

On The Kudlow Report, Jerry Bowyer defends the eurozone and calls for sound money and lower taxes:




The WSJ editorial board notes the harm higher top tax rates do to job creators.

On NRO’s Corner, Cato’s Mark Calabria rebuts David Beckworth’s “conservative case for QE2.”

The WSJ reports U.S. Rep. Mike Pence’s (IN) superb recent Detroit Economic Club speech calling for a supply-side reform agenda.

After criticizing the excessive money creation under Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Mr. Pence called for eliminating the Fed's dual mandate to pursue both price stability and full employment. He wants the Fed to focus exclusively on price stability and thinks the U.S. should consider returning to gold in setting the value of the dollar. President Reagan understood that inflation is the thief of the middle class and that investor confidence is destroyed when governments debase the value of their currencies. Mr. Pence apparently understands this, too.

A brief video clip is here.

In The Washington Times, Richard Rahn examines insider trading.

In City Journal, Nicole Gelinas advocates tax reform:

Moreover, cutting tax breaks would be in the best supply-side tradition. Supply-side economists, after all, have long counseled lower tax rates for a reason: they figured that regular people could spend and invest their money more wisely than the government could. But rate reductions can’t work if the government continues to run people’s lives through the rest of the tax code.

Right now, we may have supply-side tax rates, but thanks to tax breaks, we’ve got a thoroughly demand-side tax code. That’s a toxic combination, considering that we need healthy economic growth to help us confront our national debt. The economy can’t grow optimally if Washington encourages Americans to pour more borrowed money into their houses at the expense of more productive investments. Nor can the economy fight its way out of stagnation if state and local governments keep pushing up their own taxes, with an assist from Capitol Hill and the White House.

At Lew Rockwell, Gary North obsesses over deficits and omits economic growth from his critique of the Laffer Curve.

Thursday items.

Housekeeping note: I've added Alan Reynold's 1984 piece, "Managed Money" to the Classic Articles section.
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The WSJ reports that following this week’s strong dollar comments, Treasury’s Tim Geithner advocates a global exchange-rate agreement.

At NRO, Larry Kudlow wonders if Sec. Geithner is serious about wanting a stronger dollar.

On The Kudlow Report, David Goldman discusses Geithner’s remaks:



At Seeking Alpha, John M. Mason comments on Robert Mundell’s recent WSJ interview.

On Catholic Culture, Dr. Jeff Mirus summarizes Goldman and Reuven Brenner’s recent article on Keynesian economics.

Keynes’ idea is simple. In fact, it is simple by construction, for it focuses on the very short term within a closed economy. If consumers won’t spend, the government will spend for them; if businesses won’t invest, the government will invest for them; and if investors won’t take risks, the central bank will reduce the yield on low-risk investments to almost nothing. The risk-taking of entrepreneurs, the cleverness of inventors, the skills and motivation of the workforce, the competitiveness of industries—all the granular reality of a dynamic society, chugging along through trial and error—vanish into Keynesian aggregates like gross domestic product, price indices, productivity, and so forth. Behind all the technical language stands the assumption that bureaucracies, with no business experience whatsoever, can somehow make wise decisions about allocating capital—and do so quickly. These gross simplifications take on the aura of academic theurgy when packaged into seemingly complex mathematical models that occult their ridiculous assumptions.

The Telegraph (UK), Terry Smith argues against raising British tax rates.

At Forbes, Rich Karlgaard suggests the key to restoring economic growth is more small companies reaching the billion-dollar mark.

In Investor’s Business Daily, David Beckworth and William Ruger critique Fed policy from a monetarist perspective.

On Kudlow, Don Luskin says the Fed not the Treasury determines the dollar’s value:



Cato’s Dan Mitchell wonders why distrust of government seems to be a partisan issue.