When baseball immortal Babe Ruth was asked after the 1931 season why his $80,000 salary exceeded President Herbert Hoover’s $75,000, the lifelong Democrat responded: “I had a better year than he did.”

Once Saddam Hussein is defeated, the U.S.-led coalition that has defeated him will have its most difficult economic decision: what to do with Iraq’s oil revenues, to ensure that they benefit the Iraqi people as a whole, rather than simply fueling a destructive and greedy government machine.

In 1979-80, at the time of the Chrysler bailout, I and many other commentators predicted that saving Chrysler would simply result in bankrupting Ford. Now, 24 years later, this prediction may finally be on the brink of realization.

Friday’s unemployment numbers were truly dreadful — 308,000 job losses — yet the U.S. stock market, ignoring one of the most important monthly economic releases, was up on the day. According to accepted theory, this shouldn’t happen — new information should immediately be reflected in prices. What’s really going on?

Next Monday, March 10, is three years from the peak in the U.S. stock market, March 10, 2000, when the Nasdaq composite index closed at 5,048.62. In bear market terms, this is a very long time. Three years from the September 1929 peak, the stock market had already touched its nadir, in June 1932 (at […]