StateLab.org

The Financial Meltdown: How Did We Get Into This Mess?

Dave Cuddy

For four decades we the American voters have asked our politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, to rapidly increase federal government spending, increase deficits, borrow more money and increase the national debt. We've asked our politicians to take from our Social Security trust funds and pay these out to present recipients (us) so that our children will have nothing. Read more... Dave Cuddy has a BA in Economics, an MBA, and is a former bank president and former state legislator.

Stimulate Economic Education

Dave Cuddy

Every generation in America…until this one…has endeavored to deliver a better quality of life, and an improved nation to our children. For the first time in our country's history, we have failed in this challenge. The economic meltdown is unlike anything in most of our memories. It is the consequence of government and individuals living off of borrowed money to artificially stimulate the economy and our sense of economic well being. We reward and subsidize businesses that don't produce anything, and that do nothing but build relationships with politicians. We develop government policies that encourage formation and immigration of dysfunctional families that are consumers of government resources and tax dollars. (Thomas Paine said, "there are two types of people: those who pay taxes and those who live on tax dollars.") Read more... Dave Cuddy has a BA in Economics, an MBA, and is a former bank president and former state legislator.

Let the Climategate hearings begin

Kenneth Green

Climate skeptics are having a field day, celebrating the firestorm of controversy surrounding the UK’s Hadley Center Climate Research Unit (CRU), until recently, the world’s leading climate research center. One skeptic, a Canadian named Steve McIntyre has particular cause for doing a happy dance over the misery of the CRU. If you’ve been living without an internet connection, here’s a quick overview of l’affaire Climategate. On November 17, someone posted to the internet a vast archive of materials that had been hacked or leaked from the CRU, including numerous emails, documents, computer code, and data. While all of the information has not been verified as 100% correct, none of the people cited have denied that the documents are legitimate, and some outside entities engaged in the e-mail exchanges have confirmed that they are genuine. Read more... Kenneth Green is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This column provided courtesy of the Alaska Policy Forum.