President George W. Bush’s plan to abolish the tax deductibility of corporate health insurance, while granting a tax break for its private purchase doesn’t solve many of the US health system’s problems. Not surprising; the incentives involved in healthcare purchase are bizarre, and always have been. Only when this reality is recognized, and the economics […]

U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s announcement that he will devote $800 million of his Goldman Sachs fortune to charitable activities, primarily in the area of the environment, brought coos of approval from the business and establishment press. In reality, it raises serious questions about the market’s efficiency. Does a system in which wealth is achieved […]

Venezuela’s nationalization of the telephone company CANTV and the electric utility Electricidad de Caracas have demonstrated once again how insecure are property rights, not just in Venezuela, but in Latin America as a whole. Latin Americans pay for their disdainful attitude to those rights, in every paycheck they get, because the lack of secure property […]

The Wall Street Journal Thursday reported that no less than 71% of companies with Standard and Poor’s credit ratings had junk-quality ratings – BB and below—in 2006, up from 32% in 1980. An astounding 42% of companies with credit ratings were rated single B, the lowest possible credit rating that isn’t vulnerable to immediate default. […]

The SEC recently decided that executive stock options should be disclosed in the table of management compensation only over the life of the deal, not up-front. It knew it was being naughty, so it announced this the Friday before Christmas. Only the unsleeping vigilance of incoming House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D.-MA), ever […]