Archive for Raymond J. Keating
Contributing editor Raymond Keating is chief economist for the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.
Halfway to Anywhere: Achieving America’s Destiny in Space by G. Harry Stine
M. Evans and Company, Inc. • 1996 • 304 pages • $21.95 Not all that long ago, if someone mentioned NASA to me, my guilty conscience would scream “Warning, warning, warning,” like that robot from the old television show “Lost in Space.” You see, when it came to the space program, I kept a scurrilous [...]
1Mar1998 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedEverything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets by Robert Kuttner
Alfred A. Knopf • 1997 • 410 pages • $27.50 Robert Kuttner’s Everything for Sale carries the subtitle The Virtues and Limits of Markets. Unfortunately, Kuttner sees few, if any, virtues and many limits when it comes to free markets. Of course, it will surprise few that Kuttner holds this view. After all, he is [...]
1Nov1997 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedTV Taxes
Christmas arrived early for TV broadcasters this year. Way back in March the federal government played Santa Claus. Over a four-day period, from March 31 to April 3, Washington gave away the proverbial store to the nation’s over-the-air television broadcasters. A major step by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)—taken per a Democratic White House and [...]
1Nov1997 | Raymond J. Keating | 2 comments | ContinuedFore: Watch Out for Government Golf!
Mr. Keating, this month’s guest editor, serves as chief economist for the Small Business Survival Foundation, and is the author of New York by the Numbers: State and City in Perpetual Crisis (Madison Books, 1997). Politicians love invoking sports metaphors in speeches almost as much as they relish doling out subsidies to professional sports like [...]
1Aug1997 | Raymond J. Keating | 1 comment | ContinuedBook Review: Business as a Calling: Work and the Examined Life by Michael Novak
The relationship between economics, business, philosophy, and theology periodically received serious attention from the time of Adam Smith into the early twentieth century. Albeit with a handful of very valuable exceptions, this discussion unfortunately has been on a general decline ever since. With his book Business as a Calling: Work and the Examined Life, Michael [...]
1Apr1997 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedBook Review: The Life of Adam Smith by Ian Simpson Ross
Clarendon Press, Oxford • 1995 • 495 pages • $35.00 If you ever wondered what books Adam Smith’s father kept in his library, then Ian Simpson Ross’s The Life of Adam Smith is for you. Indeed, Ross’s biography of the father of free-market economics is jam-packed with such facts regarding Smith, his family, teachers, friends, [...]
1Mar1997 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedAn Optimist’s View of the Entrepreneurship Explosion
Advocates of economic freedom, rejoice. Despite some setbacks of late, the future is promising. True, the 1990s thus far have been plagued by a federal government run amok, including massive tax increases, heavier regulatory burdens, and rising government expenditures. Indeed, recent U.S. public-policy developments leave little to cheer about for proponents of smaller government and [...]
1Mar1997 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Economic Woes of Pro Sports: Greed or Government?
Mr. Keating is chief economist with the Washington, D.C.-based Small Business Survival Foundation. Beyond labor strife, two issues particularly annoy pro sports fans today—exorbitant player salaries and city-hopping by teams. Player salaries that seem wildly out of kilter have been bothersome for some time. For example, the average Major League Baseball player reportedly earned $1.2 [...]
1Jan1997 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedHands Off: Why Government Is a Menace to Economic Health
Economist and author Susan Lee possesses a wonderful talent for making economics enjoyable to read. She also lays claim to a rather healthy skepticism of government economic activism. These two gifts combine to make Hands Off: Why Government Is a Menace to Economic Health worth reading. Two points that Lee makes in the introduction set [...]
1Dec1996 | Raymond J. Keating | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Road Ahead
An odd breed of business executive regularly appears on the public-policy landscape—the supporter of big government in business. Big government boosters favor not only corporate welfare initiatives, but a host of other interventions, including research and development, education, pork-barrel subsidies, and even expanded social welfare programs. Interestingly, many—but not all—of these statist business executives tend [...]
1Nov1996 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedGovernment’s Hostile Takeover
In the history of modern-day capitalism, there have been occasional misplaced concerns regarding corporate raids or hostile takeovers. Worries about corporate instability, excessive debt, and job losses mount when an individual or firm attempts to seize the reins of a corporation against the wishes of current management. In reality, of course, hostile takeovers are a [...]
1Oct1996 | Raymond J. Keating | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Anatomy of an International Monetary Regime: The Classical Gold Standard 1880-1914
Monetary policy today is guided by little more than government fiat—by the calculations, often mistaken economic theories, and whims of central bankers or, even worse, politicians. Under such a regime, inflation of three or four percent annually has come to be viewed as a stellar monetary performance. However, under a more sound monetary system—i.e., a [...]
1Sep1996 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedThe New York City Guide to Destroying an Economy
New York City once served as an international beacon of economic opportunity, attracting individuals and entrepreneurs from around the globe. But for several decades, New York’s entrepreneurial lights have been dimming, to the point now that they are all but extinguished. What brought about the demise of this once great city? The answer lies on [...]
1Aug1996 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedWealth and Poverty
Throughout much of the twentieth century, economists seemed destined to make themselves irrelevant. Emphasis on aggregate demand management and input-output economic models came to dominate the discipline, truly making it a dismal science. Though many outstanding economists fought nobly against this trend, by the 1970s the Keynesian victory of macroeconomics over microeconomics seemed almost complete. [...]
1May1996 | Raymond J. Keating | 2 comments | ContinuedThe Vandals’ Crown: How Rebel Currency Traders Overthrew the World’s Central Banks
The first 225 pages of The Vandals’ Crown generally make for interesting reading—describing some fascinating developments in financial markets and the economy. The remaining 50 or so pages unfortunately skew off in a different direction—either better left for another book or simply discarded altogether. Much of this book, though, lives up to its tantalizing subtitle—“How [...]
1Apr1996 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | ContinuedWarning: OSHA Can Be Hazardous to Your Health
How could anyone find fault with a government agency whose stated mission is “to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the nation safe and healthful working conditions and to preserve our human resources”?[1] As is typical with government agencies brandishing impossible missions, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has [...]
1Mar1996 | Raymond J. Keating | 4 comments | ContinuedFrom Here to Economy: A Shortcut to Economic Literacy
The echoes of John Maynard Keynes still resonate across the intellectual and policy terrain traveled by economists. Thankfully, though, these echoes seem to be growing fainter with each passing year. From Here to Economy serves as an example of such developments. Author Todd Buchholz provides an interesting overview of the economics world, though his book [...]
1Feb1996 | Raymond J. Keating | 0 comments | Continued-
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JPMorgan Chase and Casino Banking
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Individualism, Trade-Unions, and “Self-Governing Combinations”
Who do you imagine said this? “[Trade-unions] seem natural to the passing phase of social evolution,... Read More
Bubbles, Malinvestment, and Higher Education
Many commentators are asking whether the next big bubble to burst will be the debt associated with the... Read More
JPMorgan’s Blunder Is No Market Failure
I am not going to try to defend JPMorgan Chase for its recent, widely reported financial blunders. ... Read More
For Equality; Against Privilege
This TGIF originally ran July 7, 2006. The freedom philosophy can be boiled down to two phrases: for... Read More
