In The WSJ, Stephen Moore reports the President may embrace Simpson-Bowles to regain credibility as a fiscal moderate.
At The American, James Pethokoukis notes a study refuting the prevailing progressive narrative of the financial crisis. From NRO, Reihan Salam suggests the US is moving back towards the top of the Laffer Curve. On The Kudlow Report, Rich Karlgaard discusses the falling euro:
In The WSJ, Harvey Golub compares the current recovery to 11 past. On NRO, Thomas Sowell recounts Andrew Mellon’s tax cut arguments. The Hillreports the Alliance for American Manufacturing pushing for currency manipulation requirements in future trade agreements. In The NYT, Andrew Sorkin argues the Glass-Steagall Act wouldn’t have prevented the mortgage crisis.
From Central Banking, Robert Mundell provides a fascinating overview of the euro and the dollar situation.
At Forbes, John Tamny suggests politicians should do less.
The WSJnotes a week’s worth of unhelpful economic messages from the Obama Administration:
Monday: "Warren Buffett right about taxes, says Obama." The week began with a one-two tax punch from Warren Buffett and President Obama. The Omaha stock-picker wrote an op-ed begging Congress to raise taxes on millions of Americans who make less than he does, and the President used the first stop of his bus tour, in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, to agree.
"I put a deal before the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, that would have solved this problem," Mr. Obama said, "and he walked away because his belief was we can't ask anything of millionaires and billionaires and big corporations in order to close our deficit." So America's main job creators are still on notice that a tax increase is in their future in 2013, if not sooner.
In The Washington Post, Greg Ip argues Republican skepticism of easy money and Keynesian spending is the new voodoo economics.
On Asia Times, David Goldman suggests there are two American economies.
From last week on The Kudlow Report, Jimmy Pethokoukis discusses the President’s growth plans:
From Bloomberg, conservative Keynesian John Taylor blames President Nixon’s wage and price controls – not the dollar's float from gold – for 1970s inflation.
In The WSJ, Harvey Golub responds to Warren Buffett’s tax-hike advocacy.
At Barron’s, Jim McTague describes Ron Paul’s economic message as gloomy.
In The WSJ, Mary Anastasia O’Grady links the Fed’s easy money to high commodity prices, which may help re-elect Argentina’s leftist government.
The Weekly Standardreports US Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) passing on a White House run.
The "fiat" dollar, he adds ruefully, "is one of the world's astounding monetary creations. That a currency of no intrinsic value is accepted as money the world over is an achievement that no monetary economist up until not so many decades ago could have imagined. It'll be 40 years next month that the dollar has been purely faith-based. I don't believe for a moment it's destined to go on much longer. I think the existing monetary arrangements are so precarious, so ill-founded and so destructive of the economic activity they are supposed to support and nurture, that they will be replaced by something better."
How exactly the transition to a new gold standard might take place is a puzzle, but Mr. Grant says he's seen many "impossible" things come to pass in his career. A certain "social spontaneity" might take a hand. He points to GLD—the ticker symbol for an exchange-traded fund whose gold holdings now make it equivalent to the world's 10th largest central bank. "At the margin," he says, "people are registering dissent from the judgment of our central bankers by bidding up the price of gold."
At The Telegraph (UK), Ambrose Evans reports the flight to gold amidst currency and debt crises.
On Forbes, Peter Ferrara suggests the current economic policy mix is the opposite of Reaganomics.
At RCM, Joe Calhoun makes the crucial point that economic bubbles are always and everywhere a function of monetary policy.
On The Kudlow Report, James Pethokoukis debates the debt showdown and tax hikes:
From Forbes, Reuven Brenner wonders what can be done to reawaken European entrepreneurship.
The NY Sunnotes last week’s Ron Paul/Ben Bernanke exchange on gold.
On the Rick Amato radio show, Art Laffer discusses the 2012 presidential campaign:
In The WSJ, Robert Reich argues the 2012 presidential campaign will come down to jobs.
At The Washington Times, blogger Eric Golub challenges progressive claims about tax cuts.
