Brian Gongol
Know your Federal budget
The President has proposed a budget for Fiscal Year 2014. And it's not balanced, nor does it ever estimate becoming so. A deficit equal to 6% of GDP for 2013, 4.4% for 2014, 3.2% for 2015, 2.8% for 2016, 2.4% for 2017, and 2.3% for 2018 (see page 29). Of course, that also assumes the US economy will grow 4.2% in 2013, 4.9% in 2014, 5.4% in 2015, 5.5% in 2016 and 2017, and 5.2% in 2018 (see page 27). Would that be great? Of course. Is it going to happen? No way. A 5% economic growth rate would be a delightful boom, and a 2% Federal deficit would be easily-tolerable under those conditions. But that's not what's going to happen. Even making accommodation for the fact those estimates are not adjusted for inflation, deducting out 1% to 2% for inflation still assumes a much higher expected growth rate for the economy than has been experienced with any consistency for quite a while.
WTO forecasts slower trade growth in 2013
They'd like to see 5% growth; they're expecting 3.3% this year
"The miners' strike shows why Thatcher was correct to want the government out of industry"
Why the political left owes Margaret Thatcher a debt of gratitude: She so shifted the political dynamic that the most outrageous statism was revealed for what it was (and is), forcing leftists to get in touch with market economics.
Shifting attention from task to task leads to errors
Rebuilding Mapleton
The Iowa town was damaged terribly by a tornado in 2011, but the people there have rebounded admirably.
