Free Republic

Outgoing Washington Post economic columnist Steven Pearlstein spent his last column ripping apart the utopian borrow and spend fantasies of Democrats and the liberal media. Pearlstein’s column, headlined “In Democrats’ progressive paradise, borrowing is free, spending pays for itself, and interest rates never rise,” was incredibly blunt: “Welcome, fellow Americans, to the era of the free lunch.” As Pearlstein told it, “To hear it from liberal economists, progressive activists and Democratic politicians, there is no longer any limit to how much money government can borrow and spend and print.” Pearlstein said it was “disappointing” that Democrats embraced “intellectual dishonesty” and...

With the wave of Democratic Socialism sweeping over the left flank of the Democratic Party and the new class of candidates hoping to be seated in Washington in January, yet another debate over the relative merits of socialism is underway. People with very little exposure to actual socialism are either asking questions or, in some cases, eagerly adopting the label of socialist. Of course, this flies in the face of democratic capitalism, the foundation upon which our society has grown and thrived. Who will make sense of it all?Stepping in to fill the void is Steven Pearlstein, columnist for the...

When David Lipton, a promising economist, was finishing his graduate work at Harvard in the early 1980s, he faced one of those potentially life-changing choices. He had one job offer from the International Monetary Fund in Washington, the multinational institution that for 70 years has served as a lender of last resort and dispenser of orthodox economic advice to countries that get into financial trouble. There was also an offer of a teaching job from the University of Virginia. Unsure of which path to take, he turned for advice to an intellectually restless and charismatic assistant professor, a Frenchman named...

If you came up with a bumper sticker that pulls together the platform of this year’s crop of Republican presidential candidates, it would have to be: Repeal the 20th century. Vote GOP. It’s not just the 21st century they want to turn the clock back on — health-care reform, global warming and the financial regulations passed in the wake of the recent financial crises and accounting scandals. These folks are actually talking about repealing the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, created in 1970s. SNIP They reject as thoroughly discredited all of Keynesian economics,...

So much for that second-half rebound. Truth be told, that was always more of a wish than a serious forecast, happy talk from the Fed and Wall Street desperate to get things back to normal. It ain't gonna happen. Not this summer. Not this fall. Not even next winter. This thing's going down, fast and hard. Corporate bankruptcies, bond defaults, bank failures, hedge fund meltdowns and 6 percent unemployment. We're caught in one of those vicious, downward spirals that, once it gets going, is very hard to pull out of. Only this will be a different kind of recession --...

It’s all the rage with Democratic presidential candidates – vilifying the haves to win over the have-nots. However, the class warfare card is also in play for recent Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Pearlstein, a Washington Post columnist. Pearlstein participated in an online chat on the Post’s Web site April 8. Although he did not advocate direct government action, he told reader it’s time ostracize CEOs “making obscene salaries.” “No, not time for government intervention, actually,” Pearlstein wrote. “But it surely is time for people to treat CEOs who behave in this way like social and political paraiahs [sic], which is...