recession

June 03, 2019

What Christians should know about recessions

Note: This is the latest entry in the Acton blog series, “What Christians Should Know About Economics.” For other entries in the series see this post. What it means: The economy shifts from periods of increasing economic activity, known as economic expansions, to periods of decreasing economic activity, known as recessions. Continue Reading...

March 10, 2014

Talented but Unemployed? God May Be Calling You to Grubby, Unglamorous Work

“When People Give Up Looking for Work, What Do They Do?” A Wall Street Journal story looks at the “millions of working-age men” sidelined by the economic slump, and warns that “the longer they’re out of work, the more their skills deteriorate and the harder it is to land the next job.” Continue Reading...

January 17, 2014

University Study: Obamacare Cost West Michigan 1000 Jobs

A new study by Grand Valley State University professors Leslie Muller and Paul Isely suggests that the Affordable Care Act has already cost West Michigan 1000 jobs. Muller summarized the results in a Wood TV story: “Firms are actually holding off on hiring or their reducing their hiring that they were thinking they were going to be doing because of the ACA,” said Muller. Continue Reading...

April 08, 2013

Texas: Big, Hot, Cheap and Right in the New York Times!

Brian Burrough has a mostly enjoyable New York Times review of a book that’s mostly positive about my native state’s mostly small-government formula for economic growth. Some excerpts: Ms. Grieder, a onetime correspondent for The Economist who now works at Texas Monthly, and a Texan herself, has written a smart little book that … explains why the Texas economy is thriving. Continue Reading...

September 06, 2012

Recessions and Recoveries

Stanford economists Russ Roberts and John Taylor offer a helpful discussion potential GDP, recessions, and recoveries. Their comparison of previous recession/recovery cycles to the most recent one helps to illuminate just how unusual (read: terrible) our current recovery has been. Continue Reading...

September 01, 2011

How to Deliver a Recession: Cut Brake Lines, Accelerate Toward Cliff

Economic historian Brian Domitrovic has an interesting post up at his Forbes blog, Past & Present, on the proximate causes of the 2008 meltdown. According to Domitrovic, uncoordinated, even “weird” fiscal and budgetary policy in the early 2000s kept investors on the sidelines, and then flooded the system with easy money. Continue Reading...

December 22, 2010

The Age of Uncertainty

If you continue to wonder why the U.S. economy, long after it has shown signs of life and has started to recover from the Great Recession in fits and starts, refuses to take off, here’s a pretty good answer: “Our entrepreneurs have lost faith in the federal government,” says Michael Franc. Continue Reading...

May 11, 2010

The Downside of Michigan Jobless Pay

I have close friends here in Michigan who are out of work–talented, principled, hard-working people who are either unemployed or seriously underemployed. My heart breaks for them and for everyone eager to work who has been blindsided by the current recession. Continue Reading...

December 01, 2008

The Economic Blame Game

Yesterday’s Grand Rapids Press had an attention-grabbing feature graphic, which highlights an online interactive “game” that gives more information about each of the candidates for the “economic blame game” bracket. Press Graphic/Milt Klingensmith The four brackets are broken down by group, so the four major categories at fault are 1) the financial industry; 2) consumers; 3) government; and 4) inexplicable forces. Continue Reading...

July 15, 2008

Free trade follies

Last week presidential candidate John McCain distanced himself from economic adviser Phil Gramm, after Gramm’s comments that America had become a “nation of whiners” and that the current concerns over a lagging economy amounted to a “mental recession” rather than any real phenomena. Continue Reading...

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