No one present at next week’s swearing-in ceremony of Barack Obama as president is supposed to pay a dime to attend the event. But some attendees may be paying thousands of dollars for the privilege.
Barack Obama
Political Merchandise Extends Far Beyond Official Campaigns
Of the estimated $2.5 billion that Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and the Super-PACs supporting them will pump into the 2012 presidential campaign, a tiny sliver will go toward the manufacturing of campaign merchandise—the signs …
Must Be an Election Year: Bullets Are Flying Off the Shelves
Another election is approaching and it’s no coincidence that 2012 is shaping up to be a huge year for sales of bullets and guns. President Obama is even being referred to as “salesman of the year.”
Is Romney the Wrong Kind of Rich?
Do Americans – or at least a significant portion of them — resent success? To hear some tell it, the biggest division in the country today is between those striving for success – and those who want to tear down the …
Obama’s World Bank Pick, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, Links Global Health and Economic Development
Jim Yong Kim would become the first doctor to lead the World Bank.
$4 Mark for Gas Could Be Reality in Nine States & D.C. This Week
Gas prices have soared in 2012. The national average is currently $3.80—up 50¢ since the beginning of the year, and a rise of 30¢ over the last month. There are now four states where the average gallon of regular has passed …
Congressional Budget Office: Get Used to 8% Unemployment
If you’re looking for good news from the Congressional Budget Office’s annual summer update of its budget and economic outlook, which was released today, there’s always this: at least the CBO isn’t predicting that double-dip recession. According to the non-partisan agency that provides economic data to Congress, real GDP will …
Obama’s New Economic Advisor Defended Subprime Lending
Austan Goolsbee and President Obama (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
It has become taboo to defend anything having to do with subprime lending. Why would you? It’s clear now that banks and mortgage brokers handed out expensive loans to many people who had little ability to make the payments. It’s also clear that the result was not …
Obama’s $200 Billion Tax Cut Problem: What Will Companies Buy?
Cell phone tower builders could get a stimulus benefit
If you think a plan called, “Cash for Cell Phone Towers,” or “Cash for Internal Combustion Engines,” sounds kind of clunky, that may be the problem.
On Wednesday, President Obama in a speech in Cleveland, Ohio, officially announces a bonanza of a business tax cut that could …
Is it time to raise the gas tax?
Back in 2008, when Barack Obama was running for President, he took a politically unpopular stand on the gas tax. Both John McCain and Hillary Clinton were calling for a gas-tax “holiday” to stimulate the economy. Obama took the side of most economists (not to mention our very own Justin Fox) in saying that a lower gas tax might play well …
4 smart things Barack Obama said about job creation
I’ve been pretty critical of a lot of the ideas coming out of Washington about how to encourage job creation, so I thought I’d take a breather and do a more glass-half-full post. As it turns out, I’ve been out in America this week doing some reporting on the topic, speaking with a lot of small-business owners, start-up CEOs and …
Obama to Wall Street: Keep your naughtiness in check. Please
The President went to Wall Street today and said … well, nothing new, really. The substance of his speech was that Congress ought to pass all those financial reforms the Treasury Department proposed a few months back. Actually he said near the end of the speech that the reforms “will pass.” Want to put some money on that?
The Big …
