Tuesday items: Kadlec on Europe's tax hike failures; Benko on Rueff; Forbes on Ron Paul.

From Forbes, Charles Kadlec notes the failure of Europe’s tax-increase austerity.

At TGSN, Ralph Benko highlights Jacques Rueff’s critique of the post-war gold exchange standard.

On C-SPAN, Steve Forbes supports US Rep. Ron Paul (TX) for Fed Chairman:



At The American, Alex Brill examines tax fairness.

In The Washington Times, Richard Rahn lambasts the Obama Administration’s new foreign reporting requirement for US banks.

From Alhambra Partners, Joe Calhoun investors stay in cash.

On NRO, Larry Kudlow analyzes the weak recovery.

At The WSJ, James Swanson discusses Bill Clinton’s claim that President Obama is ahead of the curve pulling the US out of the financial crisis:



In The WSJ, Stephen Moore reports a congressional debate over highway spending.

From The Washington Post, Ezra Klein notes the return of many GW Bush economists on the Romney campaign.

At The WSJ, Cass Sunstein highlights an executive order to harmonize US and foreign regulation.

On Salon, Michael Lind argues the era of globalization is over.

The coal industry highlights the financial strain of rising energy costs:



In The NYT, Bruce Bartlett argues current tax rates aren’t blocking economic growth.

From Bloomberg, Rich Miller argues higher tax rates won’t discourage the wealthy from working harder.

Tuesday summary: Domitrovic on the weak dollar; Stoll on interest rates; Tamny on China's trade deficit.

From Forbes, Brian Domitrovic explains the weak dollar caused the real estate bubble.

In The NY Sun, Ira Stoll notes the problems for savers with zero interest rates.

At RCM, John Tamny suggests there’s nothing wrong with China’s new trade deficit.

On The Kudlow Report, John Rutledge discusses the US’s tough trade stance towards China:



At TGSN, Ralph Benko highlights Jacques Rueff’s analysis of the monetary errors that led to the Great Depression.

In The Washington Times, Richard Rahn argues the world economy’s future is bearish.

From Alhambra Partners, Joe Calhoun expresses pessimism about the economy.

At Hindu Business Line, G. Ramachandran links Robert Mundell’s euro to the Roman Empire.

On The WSJ, Paul Gigot discusses Newt Gingrich’s prospects in the southern primary states:



On Econlog, David Henderson disputes Louis Woodhill’s analysis of gold and oil.

In The NYT, Bruce Bartlett advocates higher tax rates to raise more revenues.

Monday items: Tamny on tax reform; Lipsky sees the dollar emerging as a campaign issue; Pethokoukis on income inequality.

From Forbes, John Tamny advocates a consumption tax.

In The NY Sun, Seth Lipsky says the dollar is emerging as a campaign issue.

At The American, James Pethokoukis responds to attacks on his income inequality analysis.

On The Kudlow Report, Pethokoukis discusses Herman Cain’s handling of sexual harassment allegations:



On NRO, Larry Kudlow opposes QE3.

At Asia Times, David Goldman argues the investor strike is over.

From International Liberty, Dan Mitchell refutes the IMF’s call for higher taxes in El Salvador.

At TGSN, Kelly Hanson recounts Jacques Rueff’s analysis of the dollar’s reserve currency curse.

Comedian Tim Slagle uses Halloween to explain taxes (h/t: David Henderson):




In The WSJ, The Business Roundtable’s Jim McNerney argues for pro-business policies.

At The NYT, Christina Romer suggests Ben Bernanke adopt an employment target at the Fed.

Tuesday summary.

At TSGN, Kelly Hanlon quotes Lew Lehrman making a crucial point:

Jacques Rueff spoke of American “deficits without tears,” because the American budget deficit and balance-of-payments deficits were -- they still are -- almost automatically financed by the Federal Reserve and the reserve-currency system -- through the voluntary (or coerced) buildup of dollar balances in the official reserves of foreign governments. These official dollar reserves were, and still are, immediately invested by foreign authorities, directly or indirectly, in the dollar market for United States securities, thus giving back to the United States, at subsidized rates, the dollars previously sent abroad as a result of the persistent United States balance-of-payments deficit and budget deficits. To describe this awesome absurdity, Jacques Rueff invoked the metaphor of an overworked tailor to the King, yoked permanently to fictitious credit payments by His Majesty’s unrequited promissory notes.

The WSJ reports Fed Chairman Bernanke is concerned about the oil price but not enough to change his policy direction.

On The Kudlow Report, Steve Forbes discusses the falling dollar:



On Forbes, Charles Kadlec argues that enterprise – not greed – is good.

From Asia Times, David Goldman reiterates that currency-related food price spikes are behind the Middle East revolts.

Also on Kudlow, John Tamny suggests legalization of insider trading:



At The Washington Times, Richard Rahn examines the non-monetary ways in which the Obama Administration is raising energy prices.

Cato’s Dan Mitchell promotes a new video on tax competition.

From the archives, John D. Mueller recounts the achievements of supply-side economics founder Robert Mundell.

It isn't possible to appreciate Mundell's work without knowing that he began as a junior member in a colloquy that had been going on for decades when he arrived; but he soon established himself as an equal, or more. Mundell recognized in the early 1960s that the Keynesian revolution in economics, dominant among American and British economists after the Second World War, contained some serious shortcomings. 'The Keynesian model is a short run model of a closed economy, dominated by pessimistic expectations and rigid wages. This model is not relevant to modern economies," he wrote in Monetary Theory (1971).

In seeking an alternative to Keynesian theory, Mundell had to return to much older sources, such as the eighteenth-century ideas of David Hume and the 19th-century general-equilibrium theory of Leon Walras. 'The object," Mundell explained, "is to combine the essential features of the specific models of Hume, [Irving] Fisher and Keynes in a more general theory of interest, inflation, and growth of the world economy. I do not claim to have resolved all the problems associated with a new approach, but only to have helped build, with able predecessors and contemporaries, a better foundation for monetary theory."

In doing so, Mundell could draw on a Continental European tradition including economists like Robert Triffin and Jacques Rueff, which had always maintained the classical teachings; but many of their writings were (and remain) unfamiliar to English-speaking economists, and were not expressed in the mathematical form that became standard at about the same time as Keynesian macroeconomic theory. (It's interesting that the return of American and British economists to the fold of classical economics was mediated largely by Canadian-born economists like Mundell and Harry Johnson.) As Mundell noted at a 1967 international monetary conference, "I do not know why it has taken so long for Anglo-Saxon economists to admit the truth of the elementary proposition [Rueff] is making: that there is an adjustment mechanism that is automatically operative under fixed exchange rates if it is allowed to operate." It's fitting that in 1983 Mundell was awarded the Jacques Rueff Prize in Paris by the Jacques Rueff Foundation and the Lehrman Institute.

From Reason, Shikha Dalmia suggests Americans have nothing to fear from India and China’s growth.

At The Financial Times, conservative Keynesian Peter Peterson – funder of the Institute for International Economics – advocates a fiscal rebalancing through deep spending cuts and tax increases.

From NPR, liberal economist Dean Baker argues for growth (through spending) and against balanced budget obsession.

Weekend round up.

In The WSJ, Art Laffer proposes an agenda for stronger growth but minimizes the centrality of monetary reform.

On Forbes, Econoclasts author Brian Domitrovic exposes the flawed analysis of gold's critics.

Also at The Journal, Stephen Moore discusses the politics of extending the Bush tax cuts:




On Forbes, Paul Hoffmeister suggests the President’s support for quantitative easing may cost him reelection.

At the Economic History Association, Brian Domitrovic reviews a biography of French gold standard advocate Jacques Rueff.

At Cato, Dan Mitchell critiques the deficit commission’s recommendations.

On The Kudlow Report, Don Luskin is bullish after last week’s market selloff:




At New World Economics, Nathan Lewis considers political and economic developments from an international perspective.

On The NY Sun, Seth Lipsky supports Sarah Palin’s sound money advocacy.

At the Atlas Sound Money Project, Tom Duncan reports on a recent panel on the dollar.