Last week, Jamie Dimon, CEO of the nation's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, revealed that the bank had made a $2 billion-plus trading mistake. The bank has more than $2 trillion in assets and made a profit of about $20 billion last year. So it lost one-tenth of 1 percent of its assets and an amount equal to about 10 percent of its income for last year. No big deal, despite all the hand-wringing of the political and media class.
Denial is leading to collective economic suicide in Europe and the United States. The French on Sunday elected a socialist president who wants to raise taxes on those elusive rich and keep spending as if there is no tomorrow.
Treasury secretary ignored economic impact of new bank reporting rules
What would you think of a secretary of the Treasury who failed to do serious cost-benefit analysis about regulations that could cost millions of Americans their jobs and cause innocent people to be subject to political abuse or worse and yet have almost no benefit to the United States?
The rich have the means to decide how much tax is ‘fair’
Do you think it is more important to have a tax policy that raises the most revenue at the least cost in order to maximize job growth and economic opportunity or to have a tax policy like the Buffett rule, which falsely claims it would make all millionaires pay a higher tax rate than their secretaries?
Our forebears rebelled over fewer insults than we must bear today
Americans, now 236 years removed from the Declaration of Independence, have acquiesced to far more tax tyranny - and I do not use that word lightly - than the British tax tyranny that ignited our revolt.
Republicans could be blocking agency overreach, but aren’t
The Supreme Court last week ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a unanimous decision. The EPA had charged a couple with violating the Clean Water Act. It claimed their property was a “wetland” and said it would fine them up to $75,000 per day - but there was no water on the property and there had been no judicial review of the charge. Where are the members of Congress whose funding enables the EPA to engage in this tyranny?
Ancient Georgian city is benefiting from modern free-market economy
BATUMI, GEORGIA
This city is one of the oldest on earth, as humans lived here at least as early as the 12th century B.C. Now, it is rapidly becoming one of the most modern cities on the planet. Its setting at the eastern end of the Black Sea coast is spectacular, with orange groves and snow-covered mountains rising literally within walking distance of the beaches.
Chasing foreign investment out of the U.S. is counterproductive
Most people intuitively understand that job creation requires capital investment, but many in the Obama administration and in Congress seem to have missed this basic fact of economic life. As the late Jack Kemp used to say, “How many truck drivers would you have if nobody had money to buy trucks?” There are numerous studies that try to measure the cost of the average job, but a figure of $225,000 on average is in the ballpark.
