Economics

The great producer Walmart, loathed by Marxists, “Progressives,” and Occupiers everywhere, has once again found itself at the center of a controversy. Recently, the New York Times broke the story that, for years, Walmart systematically bribed government officials in Mexico in order to secure building permits, which enabled Walmart to…

An informative video from the Foundation for Economic Education features Scott Beaulier discussing economic freedom in Africa. Beaulier focuses on two countries, Botswana and Zimbabwe. “Botswana since 1965 has been one of the most rapidly growing countries in the world averaging more than 7 percent growth per year,” and the…

Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke is “one of the most powerful men in Washington,” notes the New York Times. Of course he is: He holds near-dictatorial powers over the nation’s money supply. In a recent talk at George Washington University, Bernanke condemned the gold standard for hampering the government’s ability…

In a recent blog post, I lauded Greg Smith’s op-ed chastising Goldman Sachs for losing its focus on the long-range goal of making money with its clients and shifting its focus to a shortsighted approach of making money off its clients. I also said that I thought the media had…

Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs suffered its latest in a series of public relations problems on Wednesday when executive Greg Smith quit the firm and published his grievances against it in the New York Times. Smith accused the firm of abandoning its client-focused culture—a culture of trust, of long-term…

If I were to write a business plan based on manufacturing and selling a product few people wanted, for a price few people were willing to pay, in the midst of the worst recession in at least twenty years, would you invest funds in my venture?  You would if you…

In his latest email to subscribers, Jason Calacanis pondered: Anyone who . . . used Groupon, Farmville, Facebook, Angry Birds or LinkedIn in the first year knew they were good investments and should have been allowed to invest. Only the rich were allowed to invest. How is that fair? It’s…

The Greeks suffer a failing economy largely because of that nation’s bloated redistributionist state, but another contributing factor is the mountain of bureaucratic feces the Greek government piles on entrepreneurs. Alexandra Kassimi reports for Ekathimerini.com: “It took 10 months, a fat bundle of paperwork, countless certificates, long hours of haggling…

“The Obama administration is proposing to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent,” reports the AP. Unfortunately, the plan would not cut net taxes on corporations, as it also involves eliminating some so-called “tax loopholes” through which the government permits some corporations to pay less than…

If productiveness in the face of difficult obstacles is a virtue, then Israel is indeed a virtuous country. Bloomberg reports that during the last decade, despite two wars (Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008) and on-going security problems, Israel’s stock exchange had the highest percentage return among twenty-four developed-nation…