Newly installed Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is seeking to revamp Mexico’s economy, and one tool he has already pursued is labor reform. It is long overdue. According to the 2013 Index of Economic Freedom, published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, Mexico ranks below the world …
The House just voted on a proposal to extend President Obama’s (misnamed) “federal pay freeze” for another year. While Congress has better ways of reducing excessive federal compensation, this approach beats handing out an across-the-board raise. Americans should not have to take a vow of poverty to work in government, …
President Obama assured the nation in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday that the housing market is “healing,” although mortgage credit remains extremely tight. But that’s not too surprising considering that banks have been forced to shell out $2 billion for a government-mandated paper chase. The case in …
Japanese gross domestic product (GDP) fell for the third straight quarter (October–December) and was essentially flat for 2012 as a whole. This continues two decades of stagnation in annual output—Japan’s annual GDP in 2012 is essentially the same as 20 years ago. Stagnation is part of what motivated new Prime …
Valentine’s Day is synonymous with roses, chocolate, and those wonderfully sweet heart-shaped sugar candies. What isn’t so sweet about the holiday of love is the “love” that the U.S. sugar program sends to consumers in the form of higher prices and fewer jobs. The federal government has been propping up …
During last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama proposed fighting poverty by raising the minimum wage. It sounds appealing but it will not work. Labor economists have repeatedly studied the effects of minimum wage increases. They find no correlation between higher minimum wages and lower poverty. Raising the …
Two recent reports document anew the failure of federal agencies to meet the extensive rulemaking requirements of the Dodd–Frank statute. The regulatory backlog highlights how unworkable the law is for both bureaucrats and businesses. As of February 1, a total of 63 percent of the rulemaking deadlines have been missed, …
As wages in China rise with economic growth, some companies are beginning to look elsewhere for what was once China’s selling point: cheap labor. It just highlights the power that free trade provides—growing economies and raising living standards. Consider that wages in China are five times greater than they were …
