We are used to thinking of the modern world as one of steadily rising productivity, where year by year through the application of new technologies workers achieve higher output per capita and wealth correspondingly increases. Yet in Latin America this is not the case; since 1980 productivity has been in steady decline, with the marvels […]

Entrepreneurship is popularly held to be the principal reason for the success of the U.S. economy, when contrasted with the failures of “Old Europe.” Yet if, as discussed here last week, U.S. productivity is increasing no faster than that in Europe, some seeds of doubt must be sown. Is there such a thing as too […]

Every year or so Bear’s Lair examines productivity, supposedly the engine of a remarkable economic revival in the United States in the last decade, and a rationale for ever rising stock prices. The publication March 24 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of multifactor productivity trends leads once again to the inescapable conclusion: the productivity […]

The Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday voted out an immigration bill directly contrary to that passed by the House of Representatives last year; it provided amnesty through a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, but included few significant enforcement measures either on the border or on employers. Since a “reconciliation” of two bills pointing in opposite […]

Commentators right and left disagree about the short term outlook for the U.S. economy, but they agree almost unanimously on the long term – living standards for nearly all Americans will maintain and extend the huge increase they have enjoyed since at least 1900. Regrettably the long term future, as well as the short term, […]

Gosh, this is exciting! The Dow Jones Industrial share index peaked at 11,722.98 on January 14, 2000. Its rise in the past few weeks has brought it within shouting distance of the best known of all stock charting patterns, the double top reversal. If you believe the charts, the stage is being set for a […]

Bruce Bartlett’s book “Imposter – How George W. Bush bankrupted America and betrayed the Reagan legacy” met with an enthusiastic reception at the Cato Institute Tuesday, as well as with predictable derision from Bush-supporting commentators elsewhere. However, Bartlett’s scathing criticisms of Bush didn’t include much on what a “good” President might have done instead. I […]

The financial services business in the past 25 years has been repeatedly deregulated, and has benefited from immense advances in technology, all in the interests of greater efficiency. Yet its employment has increased, as has its share in value added terms in the U.S. economy — from 4.55 percent of the economy in 1977 to […]

The Whigs of 19th Century Britain were notorious for applying free market economic doctrine beyond the point at which it became invalid, thus causing the Irish potato famine and the gradual hollowing out of British industry, hobbled by unilateral free trade. The controversial sale of Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) to the state […]

The recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report decrying economic performance in Europe was predictably received with gloating by the bulls of Wall Street and the George W. Bush administration. Yet they should not be so quick to gloat; the European economic model is stronger than it appears, and the U.S. model weaker.