This past September, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, announced the central bank’s QE3 plan— a decision to buy more bonds with the hope that lower interest rates will goose domestic spending and kick start economic growth. However, it is unlikely that QE3 will have any palpable effect on the economy after QE1, QE2, and Operation Twist failed to.
The Manhattan Institute just released the latest in its Issues 2012 series of policy briefs, “Why Savings are Suffering: Fed QE3 Policy Costs Seniors.” Authored by MI senior fellow and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor Diana Furchtgott-Roth, the report argues that while the Fed is hedging that people who have been saving during the economic downturn will start spending, the lower interest rates will hurt those who live on fixed incomes and rely heavily on their savings—most specifically, senior citizens.
“…When PolitiFact described a blatantly deceptive Obama campaign ad on Mitt Romney’s Medicare reform as “Mostly True.” The ad claimed that the Romney-Ryan plan “could raise future retirees’ costs more than $6,000,” when in fact the Romney-Ryan plan would increase future retiree’s costs by exactly zero, and in fact give them the opportunity to lower their out-of-pocket costs…”
Read the article on Forbes.com
Diana Furchtgott-Roth:
Mitt Romney said that the amount of money that President Obama has wasted on green jobs programs could have hired two million teachers. Green jobs programs are truly a waste—of the 33 energy loan guarantees or grants made under the Energy Department’s programs, 26, or almost 80 percent, have filed for bankruptcy or have missed production goals.
Plus, as I show in my new book, Regulating to Disaster: How Green Jobs Policies Damage America’s Economy, green energy is more expensive and raises Americans’ utility bills. Generating a megawatt hour of electricity from natural gas in 2015 will cost between $49 and $79. A megawatt hour from onshore wind will cost between $75 and $138, and from solar photovoltaic will cost between $242 and $455.
Wednesday night’s debate marks the first time President Obama and Mitt Romney will spar head to head on the economic issues that underpin the 2012 presidential election. While both candidates have spoken on the trail about tax and labor issues, neither has announced the steps they would take to safeguard the economy from another financial crisis.
The Manhattan Institute just released the latest in its Issues 2012 series of policy briefs, “WALL STREET AND DODD-FRANK: The Right Questions to Ask the Candidates.” Debate moderator, PBS’s Jim Lehrer, should consider deploying a few questions to encourage the contenders to break the silence. Authored by MI Senior Fellow, Nicole Gelinas, the report suggests thirteen questions on financial regulation for Wednesday’s presidential debate. A few of those questions include:
For President Obama:
If the Dodd-Frank law fixed Wall Street, how would you explain that just this May, 52 percent of potential voters told pollsters that they had little or no confidence in the financial industry – not much different from the 55 percent who had such little faith in the industry in the weeks after Lehman Brothers collapsed?
For Governor Romney:
You favored the idea of a government-funded “managed bankruptcy” for General Motors and Chrysler even before Obama took office and pursued such a course.[i] Do you think that large financial firms, too, should have to go through such a “managed bankruptcy” process, with creditors as well as employees taking substantial losses? In other words, is it fair to treat one industry different than the other?
For both candidates:
A lot of people like the Facebook social-media website. But they are upset that Facebook’s stock-market listing earlier this year seemed to fall prey to insider manipulation, causing big losses for small investors. Do you think the stock market gives all investors a fair shake? If not, how would you fix i
“Rather than embrace what’s happening in shale gas and shale oil, the Obama administration continues to vilify the very industry that’s helping spur economic growth. America doesn’t need more slogans about “clean” energy. It needs more cheap, abundant, reliable energy.” - Robert Bryce, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute
(Source: manhattan-institute.org)
