BrianGarst.com

Richard Rahn, “Fumbling the crystal ball:”

I am reasonably confident in saying the world is headed for a major financial crisis, because the numbers show that most large economies are projected to further increase their debt-to-gross domestic product ratios this year, which are already at record-high global levels. However, I cannot forecast with a high probability (nor do I know others who can) when this financial crisis will occur.

A forecast that the world will have a new major financial crisis is really a forecast that the world’s political leaders are incapable or unwilling to make the necessary changes to avoid the crisis (e.g., substantially reducing government spending). If a new Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan suddenly came forward, or if current leaders of major countries decided to make the necessary changes, my forecast of the crisis would become less likely.

Chris Edwards, “Why Is the Federal Government So Wasteful?”

There is no straightforward, technocratic way to “reinvent” the federal government to make it work with a decent amount of efficiency. Some of these problems can be reduced to an extent, but as long as the federal government is as large as it is, it will sadly continue wasting hundreds of billions of dollars from misallocation, mismanagement, and other problems.

The only real solution to the ongoing waste in the federal government is to downsize it.

Don Boudreaux, “Perhaps They’re All Unconsciously Biased:”

A perennial “Progressive” nostrum is the notion that other people’s consciousness must be “raised.”  A powerful belief among “Progressives” seems to be that there are only two possible reasons why someone might disagree with “Progressives’” plans to reconstruct society with government force: either the disagreeable person has a financial stake in publicly expressing disagreement or the disagreeable person suffers a “bias” that must be “corrected” by “consciousness-raising” or “awareness” campaigns.