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Recent Research and Commentary

CA Treasurer Says Public Pensions Will 'Bankrupt' State

November 4, 2009, 8:29pm

Adam Summers

California, like many other state and local governments, is being held hostage by its employee labor unions. The state's labor costs are too high and its unions too powerful. . . . Even with significant reform, such as a shift to a 401(k)-style defined contribution retirement system comparable to benefits received in the private sector for all new employees, it will take California many, many years to recover from the past and present costs of state employee compensation (if, indeed, it is ever able to recover). Without it, the state will be doomed to perpetual budget crises and broken government.

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California to Send 2,300 More Inmates to Out-of-State Private Prisons

November 3, 2009, 12:43pm

Leonard Gilroy

California has amended its contract with private prison provider CCA to increase the total number of contracted out-of-state prison beds by an additional 2,300 as part of the state's strategy to get a grip on its prison capacity crisis

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The Secret Message of Stimulus Spending

Even the feds don't believe they can create jobs

November 3, 2009

Veronique de Rugy

Stimulus funds are being allocated without thought to the level of unemployment within states. If government spending could in fact create jobs, then the problem of unemployment could be mitigated by distributing funds to states based on their relative unemployment levels.

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In Honor of Ayn Rand: Alan Greenspan on the Gold Standard and Economic Freedom (1966)

November 2, 2009, 2:12pm

Adam Summers

Alan Greenspan (1966): "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. . . . Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."

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Rep. Ron Paul's Bill to Audit the Federal Reserve 'Gutted' in Committee

November 2, 2009, 2:03pm

Adam Summers

The veil of secrecy that shrouds the Fed has only made it more mysterious, and monetary policy that much more complex and obscure, to the average American taxpayer. Political discourse over subjects like deficits and inflation tends to focus on fiscal policy, but this is only one half of the equation. It is time for more people to ask why the Fed should have a government-granted monopoly for the creation of money and what it does with its powers to alter the value of money and interest.

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A Hard Pill to Swallow

Is the stimulus turning the economy around?

October 29, 2009

Jacob Sullum

No doubt spending billions of dollars in borrowed money has some impact on the economy. But the idea that the stimulus package had much to do with an incipient recovery that may have begun in June is belied by a couple of inconvenient facts.