Monday summary: Forbes and Reynolds on Newt's role in supply-side's founding; Ron Paul on the dollar; Wilson on income inequality.

From Forbes, historian Brian Domitrovic notes Newt Gingrich’s role in advancing supply-side economics.

At The Huffington Post, Alan Reynolds denies Gingrich’s role in supply-side’s founding.

In The NY Sun, Ira Stoll criticizes Gingrich for bashing investment banks and private equity firms.

National Journal quotes Jeff Bell on the GOP presidential primary’s emerging establishment vs. conservative grassroots theme.

On The Kudlow Report, Larry Kudlow interviews US Rep. Ron Paul on the Fed, the dollar and gold:



In The WSJ, James Freeman notes that Warren Buffett likely would avoid the Buffett Rule.

On Forbes, John Tamny links global warming pessimism to belief in America’s inevitable decline.

IBD examines the Obama recovery’s abnormally slow pace.

In The Washington Post, James Q. Wilson suggests income inequality is related to social factors such as education level and family structure.

On Kudlow, David Goldman sounds moderately optimistic about US growth:



The WSJ highlights a World Bank report relating Europe’s slow growth to demographics and big government.

From Cato, David Boaz refutes the claim that China caused the 2008 financial crisis.

Tuesday items: Kudlow, Luskin and Moore on Romney; Boaz and DeMint on Paul; IBD says the Fed is readying QE3.

From NRO, Larry Kudlow suggests Mitt Romney should downsize the US government to turnaround America, Inc.

In The WSJ, Don Luskin advises Romney to defend his work at Bain.

From Cato, David Boaz defends US Rep. Ron Paul’s (TX) analysis of the financial crisis.

On The Kudlow Report, Stephen Moore discusses Romney's taxes:



In The Washington Post, Bill Knapp suggests the middle class is not stagnating.

IBD reports the Federal Reserve is preparing QE3.

The NY Sun opposes release of Fed transcripts.

In Forbes, Charles Kadlec argues declining freedom is the root of the economy’s problems.

At Powerline, Steven Hayward advocates a Laffer Curve for regulation.

On CNN, Sen. Jim DeMint (SC) applauds Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve criticism:



On Bloomberg, Virginia Postrel pans the new Margaret Thatcher movie.

In The Washington Times, Richard Rahn compares the economies of Cayman and Belize.

Thursday items.

David Malpass’s Growpac initiates a petition against the Fed’s quantitative easing.

At First Things, David Goldman responds to NRO’s Ramesh Ponnuru on QE2.

On The Kudlow Report, Malpass assesses the market:




On Louisiana radio, John Tamny discusses government barriers to economic recovery.

At Politico, David Boaz recommends Republican emphasize not raising taxes in a recession.

On The NYT, David Leonhardt illustrates that growth was sub-par in the GW Bush years and suggests tax cuts don’t lead to growth:




Dallas’s D Magazine reports Steve Forbes blames the weak dollar for the financial meltdown.

At Commentary, John Steele Gordon mocks Leonhardt for discovering that strong growth would help solve the deficit.

On NRO, Stephen Spruiell argues Keynesian stimulus spending as deficit reduction is a bad idea.

Our friends at Bankrupting America summarize the non-monetary uncertainties government is creating for businesses:

Wednesday round up.

In response to yesterday’s large Republican electoral gains, John Tamny argues for sound money as key to political success:

Despite the undeniable good that will result from the Tea Party movement hopefully forcing the political class to show spending discipline wrought by strict constitutional limits, there’s seemingly a big hole in the platform. Specifically, it’s hard to discern any interest in stabilizing the value of the dollar.

This is important, and it’s also a constitutional issue. Indeed, the Constitution empowers Congress “to coin money, regulate the value of”, and this line in the document if properly read says that Congress must legislate the issuance of dollars that hold a specific value today, tomorrow, and ten years from now.

In short, the Tea Parties, to be successful, must demand that the political class get serious about redefining the dollar in terms of gold. If not, all their spending, tax, pro-Constitution and anti-bailout protests won’t mean a whole lot, and the economy’s full recovery will remain a distant object.

At NRO, Larry Kudlow makes a similar point:

The GOP needs a King Dollar policy, preferably one backed by gold. A depreciating dollar will drain cash from the U.S. and send it overseas; foreign investment into the U.S. will be stunted by a chronically weak dollar. And the inflationary consequences of the devaluing dollar will ultimately outweigh any low-tax-rate incentives.

As the dollar kept falling during the Bush years, it blunted the pro-growth effects of the 2003 tax cuts. There is a crucial lesson to be learned here: A strong and stable dollar is an essential complement to low tax rates.

Regarding Team Obama, it now appears that Tim Geithner’s protest that no country can devalue its way into prosperity was a lot of smoke-blowing. His credibility is going to suffer.

On The Kudlow Report, Stephen Moore analyzes the electoral results:



At CNBC, John Carney predicts Treasury Sec. Geithner is a goner.

On Bloomberg, supply-side guru Robert Mundell raises alarm bells that the falling dollar will create deflationary pressures in Europe:

In an earlier speech at a forum run by Bank of America- Merrill Lynch, Mundell, 78, said the Fed’s quantitative easing was “terrorizing” the world economy. In the interview, he drew parallels between a quantitative easing-induced dollar devaluation and the “inflation tax” of the 1970s, where depreciation caused by rising U.S. prices reduced the value of dollar holdings of governments and investors around the world.

“Dollars were depreciating in value, dollars were the major reserve, this was a tax on dollars held outside” the U.S., Mundell said.

On CNBC, David Stockman claims the U.S. Fed has destabilized the world economy and forces emerging markets to buy U.S. bonds:



At Politico, Cato’s David Boaz advocates Republicans focus on the economy, but makes no mention of the dollar.

On CNBC, Professor Mundell answers five questions about himself.