If you believe the media, the Japanese economy is in terminal decline. The government is engaged in pump-priming exercises, the yen is sinking, the banks’ loan portfolios are a black hole, and there is a terrible risk of — gasp! — deflation. Fear stalks the land.

The big story in Monday’s U.S. proposed budget for 2003 is the huge — $188.4 billion, or 10.2 percent — increase in government spending between fiscal year 2001 (which ended last September 30) and fiscal 2002.

The Enron debacle has allowed the media to declare open season on accountants, working off decades of frustration at the bean-counters’ substantial salaries, uptight lifestyles and poor senses of humor.

Enron has dominated the news this week, but absent political scandal is unlikely to do so for much longer. There are too many other candidates to succeed it.

As many commentators have noted, perhaps the most important factor behind the Argentine collapse was the national philosophy, the zeitgeist if you want to be German about it, which caused a perennial policy bias towards government intervention and the hope of a free lunch. National philosophy is often a cause of economic failure; the question […]

The Argentine collapse raises questions of the International Monetary Fund’s responsibility for the disaster. Its policy recommendations were ostensibly value-neutral, but in reality had a ratchet effect, causing the inexorable expansion of the Argentine public sector. It was this, as much as a misguided monetary policy, that pushed Argentina over the edge.