Incentives

14
Dec
Government Unions vs. Taxpayers

Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal wrote a great editorial that defined the battle of the early 21st century inAmerica.  He wrote it right after Scott Brown win of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts which could only be described as unbelievable.  Henninger sees a much deeper meaning in that election. He sees the fall of the House of Kennedy.  The legacy of the battle between public sector and private sector can be traced according to Henninger to

02
Dec
Ball Corporation’s ($BLL) EVA Discipline Made Management Partners w/Shareowners

David Hoover, current CEO of EVA company  Ball Corp (BLL) is retiring.  Hoover is famous for suggesting that he hopes to be the one to own the last share of BLL when asked about the company's aggressive share buyback and capital structure. Here's an excerpt from a recent article about his tenure at BLL and how his successor, John Hayes, will stay the course:

16
Nov

Thomas Sowell's column today shows why deficit commissions are worthless at best and probably destructive because it gives big spending politicians political cover.  He also shows how lowering tax rates and widening the tax base increases revenues in dollars.  Note how he quotes the NY Times in 2006 reporting about an unexpected increase in dollars collected, so called revenues. In 1920, when the top tax rate was 73 percent, for people making over $100,000 a year, the federal government collected just

09
Nov
CARPE DIEM: Hispanics: Longer Life Expectancy, Less Insurance

I am not claiming it proves anything BUT can we just calm down and notice that health insurance does not equal "healthy" or "life expectancy" - never did and never will. John Goodman points out on The Health Care Blog that Hispanics live longer than non-Hispanic whites on average, and the table above based on CDC data shows that life expectancy is greater for Hispanics than for whites both at birth

04
Nov

President Obama does not seem to understand that his methods of implementing his programs have caused the uncertainty - that's the cause of private sector inactivity.  From the beginning of his Presidency,  Community Organizer in Chief has operated under the assumption that the Republicans had abused their " power" for the benefit of the rich, insurance companies, Wall Street, energy company executives and other business interests - traditional community organizing targets.  The main source of business uncertainty is the White

03
Nov

More clarity from Thomas Sowell.  This time he explodes the myth of the FDR administration as savior from the Great Depression through massive government intervention. Professors Commager and Morris of Columbia likewise declared: "The character of the Republican ascendancy of the twenties had been pervasively negative; the character of the New Deal was overwhelmingly positive." Anyone unfamiliar with the history of that era might never suspect from such statements that the 1920s were a decade of unprecedented prosperity and

02
Nov

I have regretted that I have been devoting so much time to a discussion of policy and politics these last two years but these are the forces that are driving financial markets today. The performance of individual companies is far less important than macroeconomic factors in determining investment performance. We are on the eve of two important events that will affect not only our immediate future but the future of the global economy:   tomorrow's mid-term elections, and the Wednesday's meeting of

27
Oct
07
Oct

GENIUS IS ONE PERCENT INSPIRATIONAND NINETY-NINE PERCENT PERSPIRATION The factor that seems to explain the most about great performance is something that researchers call deliberate practice. Exactly what that is and isn't turns out to be extremely important. It definitely isn't what most of us do on the job every day, which begins to explain the great mystery of the workplace�why we're surrounded by so many people who have worked hard for decades but have never

26
Sep

Why Big Government planning by often well-meaning elites from a far away capitol is always doomed to fail: they can't possibly have enough specific knowledge. Jonah Goldberg in the L.A. Times argues that the "market economy" - free enterprise, limited government, and individual liberty - is the greatest social system ever to emerge (I deliberately do not use the word "devised" because the system emerges without any planners, directors or bureaucrats-it's not "devised").More