A new study conducted by Wallet Hub ranks the best colleges and universities in American in 2018. Analysts took a look at almost 1,000 higher-education institutions in the United States using 26 key measures.
The data set — grouped into seven categories, such as Student Selectivity, Cost & Financing and Career Outcomes — ranges from student-faculty ratio to graduation rate to post-attendance median salary.
Workers assemble built-in appliances at the Whirlpool manufacturing plant in Cleveland, Tennessee August 21, 2013. (Photo: Reuters)
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) increased significantly in September from -0.37 to 0.17, fueled by production-related indicators. All four broad categories of indicators increased from August, and 3 of the 4 categories made positive contributions to the index in September.
With the exception of a temporary drag on economic data due to hurricanes, it has been nothing but good news for the U.S. economy. Unemployment fell to 4.2%, jobless claims are at their lowest level since March 1973 and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s regional survey of factory activity showed the highest employment in the survey’s 48-year history.
The extremely positive regional factory report came after Empire State Manufacturing Survey surged to the highest level in more than 3 years in October.
The index’s three-month moving average, CFNAI-MA3, was unchanged at –0.16 in September.
The CFNAI is a weighted average of 85 indicators of growth in national economic activity drawn from 4 broad categories of data: 1) production and income; 2) employment, unemployment, and hours; 3) personal consumption and housing; and 4) sales, orders, and inventories.
Tony Podesta, then-the Pennsylvania manager for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, speaks to Associated Press reporters in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2004. (Photo: AP)
Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group are now the subjects of a federal investigation being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, NBC News reported. Citing three sources with knowledge of the investigation, the Podesta Group became the focus as the special counsel was looking into former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
The liberal lobbying firm worked on a public relations campaign for a non-profit called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU), which was organized by Mr. Manafort and promoted Ukraine’s image in the West.
The sources said the investigation into Podesta and his company began as more of a fact-finding mission about the ECMU and Manafort’s role in the campaign, but has now morphed into a criminal inquiry into whether the firm violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA.
The law requires people who lobby on behalf of foreign agents file disclosures with the Justice Department.
Tony is the brother of former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
President Barack Obama holds a meeting with National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice; John Podesta, Counselor to the President; and Phil Reiner, Senior Director for South Asian Affairs, aboard Air Force One en route to New Delhi, India, Jan. 25, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
In a statement, a spokesman for the Podesta Group said the firm “is cooperating fully with the Special Counsel’s office and has taken every possible step to provide documentation that confirms timely compliance. In all of our client engagements, the Podesta Group conducts due diligence and consults with appropriate legal experts to ensure compliance with disclosure regulations at all times — and we did so in this case.”
John Podesta also came under fire for failing to disclose his ties to a Russian-backed company before he went to work in the Obama Administration. The company gave him 75,000 shares, which was only discovered after the 2016 election.
Pedestrians walk past the International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters’ complex in Washington Sunday, May 2, 2010. (Photo: AP)
The cossetted bureaucrats at the International Monetary Fund are on a roll. In the past few months, they’ve published reports pushing a very misguided and statist agenda.
In June, I wrote about the IMF pushing a theory that higher taxes would improve growth in the developing world.
In July, I wrote about the IMF complaining that tax competition between nations is resulting in lower corporate tax rates.
In October, I wrote about the IMF asserting that lower living standards are desirable if everyone is more equally poor.
Now let’s add to that awful collection.
A new IMF report tries to quantify the fiscal implications of a new agenda for so-called sustainable development from the United Nations.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) launched in September 2015 establish ambitious objectives to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all by 2030… From inception, it was clear this ambition would have to be accompanied by significant efforts to boost the financing resources available to developing countries.
By the way, “financing resources” is basically bureaucrat-speak for more revenue to finance bigger government.
But not just bigger government. We’re talking huge amounts of money and much, much bigger government.
…the numbers are likely to be very large. For example, Schmidt-Traub (2015) estimated that the average annual investment increase required in low-income countries (LICs) to attain these goals could reach up to $400 billion (or 50 percent of their GDP).
The article speculates that private investors and foreign aid will cover some of this cost, but the focus is on the degree to which poor nations independently have the capacity to expand the burden of government spending.
…the heavy burden imposed on the public sector cannot be overstated…requires assessing the fiscal space in LICs. … fiscal space captures the ability of a government to raise spending… The purpose of this paper is to develop a new metric of fiscal space in LICs.
The good news, from the IMF’s warped perspective, is that there’s lots of leeway to expand government in these countries, presumably enabled by big tax increases. The bad news is that there’s not enough “fiscal space” to finance the desired expansion of government.
…the fiscal space available in LICs may be in the double digits but, not surprisingly, it will be insufficient to undertake the spending needed to achieve the SDGs.
For those that care, here are some specific results.
…fiscal space in LICs is estimated to be in the double digits, with the median value reaching up to 16 percent of GDP for the full sample.
And here is a chart showing the estimates of fiscal space for resource-dependent poor countries are regular poor countries, based on various conditions.
And here’s another chart showing the potential “fiscal space” in low-income countries.
Though keep in mind that even very big increases in government would not produce the large public sectors envisioned by UN bureaucrats.
…the fiscal space available in LICs is dwarfed by the incremental annual spending needs that must be financed by the public sector to achieve the SDGs—estimated at around 30 percent of GDP.
Simply stated, the bureaucrats want us to reflexively assume that bigger government is the way to achieve the “sustainable development goals.” Yet the only sure-fire method of achieving those goals is to become a high-income nation. Those are the places, after all, that have achieved low poverty, clean environments, equal rights, and other desirable features that are part of the UN’s goals.
Moreover, there’s not a single example of a country that adopted big government and then became rich (and therefore capable of achieving the UN’s goals). So the notion that higher taxes and bigger governments can produce better outcomes for poor nations is utter bunk.
These issues were addressed in a recent video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
The bottom line is that the IMF has come up with analysis that – if followed – will ensure continued poverty and misery in the developing world. With that in mind, I think I was being too nice when I referred to that bureaucracy as the Dr. Kevorkian of global economic policy.
Hen Island, the location of primitive-living cottages less than 500 feet from the shores of Rye, New York, seen from above in the Long Island Sound.
When most think of the Long Island Sound, they picture a paradisal cut-out of communities between the eastern shores of Bronx County, New York City, and southern Westchester County. But in one of America’s wealthiest small cities, hidden health dangers breed and flourish in man-made rainwater basins and un-permitted sewage pits.
Hen Island is located less than 500 feet off the shores of Rye and serves as the not-so isolated location of summer, primitive-living cottages. Residents do not rely on modern plumbing, instead collecting and storing untreated rainwater for domestic use. Human waste for years has been dumped in sewage pits, which are located only feet away from the shoreline of the pristine Long Island Sound.
In Milton Harbor, the island is just off the mouths of Mamaroneck and Rye harbors. It is owned and operated by Kuder Island Colony Inc., but regulated by the City of Rye and Westchester County. The 34 primitive cottages on the island have enjoyed exemption from federal, state and local sanitation regulations requiring residents to use potable municipal water sources–which consequently, are already available to the island–or approved water wells.
Ray Tartaglione, a homeowner-turned-activist, has been sounding the alarm on the potential health risks caused by these systems for years in Rye. When he first purchased his property on Hen Island, he was told the sewage and water systems were legal and grandfathered in. Mr. Tartaglione joined the board and later became the president, which is when he was granted access to records showing what he had been told was false.
“I found out what they were telling me wasn’t true,” he said. “It wasn’t grandfathered in and these systems were put in illegally. I started the process to clean it up and I got a lot of resistance from the other homeowners. They were basically afraid that government agencies would come in and close the island down.”
But after holding meetings with the country health department and other agencies, he was voted off the board and his efforts were shut down. In 2008, the county removed lead investigator Ron Gatto without explanation and replaced him with Lenny Meyerson, who claimed to have inspected the island at the time and found no violations.
Worth noting, Mr. Gatto’s initial inspection found systems were installed with PVC pipe, a clear indication that the “grandfathered” explanation doesn’t hold water. While the original patent dates back to 1913, PVC/CPVC plastic piping for municipal plumbing wasn’t introduced until the 1970s, roughly two decades after the systems were allegedly installed at Hen Island.
The city council has repeatedly heard testimony from residents and experts, including Dr. Carolyn Lederman-Barotz, a physician and surgeon specializing in pediatric ophthalmology. She pled with the city council to “recognize the threat to the health and safety to the children of Rye caused by the mosquito infestation we have on Hen Island.”
Our cottage is located on the Northern part of Hen Island. And from our porch we can see the American Yacht Club, the harbor side of Shenorock Beach Club and the children playing at these clubs and taking sailing lessons. From our back porch, we have a clear view of the marshlands conservancy and Greenhaven, its community beach and the children who play there. I make this observation to you to emphasize the effect of the mosquito infestation on Hen Island is not limited but in fact it directly effects all the Rye residents who use the beautiful coastal facilities and enjoy the natural beauty the city of Rye has to offer.
Dr. Lederman-Barotz, who no longer lives on the island, said their family “has severely curtailed our visits to Hen Island” because “the mosquito infestation is just not worth it.”
That plea went largely unanswered.
Mr. Tartaglione, who now heads the local environmental group Heal the Harbor, said sewage and other forms of human waste eventually end up in the pristine and environmentally-sensitive Long Island Sound. It’s just 450 feet from where one home was listed on the market for $20 million.
“Suffice it to say, we have enough information to know that Hen Island sewage has only one place to go, and that’s into the Long Island Sound,” said Terry Backer, the Executive Director of Soundkeeper. “There appears to be pollution going into the Sound, and it’s good to see an individual taking on a group because of that.”
Officials have said the dumping of raw sewage has stopped, a claim activists vehemently disputed. Video footage taken as recent as 2016 clearly shows the sewage pits. Given their location, it is irrelevant whether the sewage is directly dumped into the Sound or simply accessible through the water table.
“That’s not true. There’s a handful that have these sewage pits less than 10 feet from the water on a 2 foot water table,” he said. “You dig 2 feet, you’re hitting water.”
Since 2003, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show the area has experienced a disproportionately high number of West Nile cases juxtaposed to the more-highly populated surrounding areas. In 2004, only Westchester County and Queens County reported cases to the CDC, and the area often boasts half the number of reported cases found in New York City.
Over the years, concerns over mosquito-transmitted viruses have grown to include the Zika virus. Infection during pregnancy can cause birth defects of the brain, including microcephaly and other severe brain defects. It is also linked to other birth problems such as miscarriage and stillbirth.
There have also been increased reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a very uncommon sickness of the nervous system. It is established to have a direct relationship with areas affected by Zika.
Hen Island, the location of primitive-living cottages less than 500 feet from the shores of Rye, New York, seen from above in the Long Island Sound.
Westchester County Health Commissioner Peter DeLucia has claimed Hen Island has been inspected–in fact, as recent as last year–and he believed residents were taking precautions.
But Port Chester Mayor Dennis Pilla doesn’t share the same sense of security.
“We’re densely populated; we’re an urban area,” Mayor Pilla recently told reporters. “We rely on the county health department and the county resources just for things like this, and it doesn’t sound like it’s adequate, quite frankly.”
People’s Pundit Daily made multiple requests for official responses to these allegations, but they went unanswered.
Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser to President Donald Trump, speaks at the California Republican Convention in Anaheim, Calf., on Friday Oct. 20, 2017. (Photo: AP)
Breitbart News Executive Chairman Steve Bannon tore into “corporatists, lobbyists, consultants, and the politicians they control” at the California Republican Party’s Fall Convention on Friday night.
The former White House chief strategist was on fire, drawing one overwhelming applause from the crowd after another.
“I’ve had the honor of being the CEO of his campaign, the chief strategist in the white house — and now I’m proud to say his wingman outside,” he said of his time with the President. “Donald Trump has been an existential threat to the system.”
He took hard shots at the Republican Establishment, calling former President George W. Bush the most “destructive” presidency in U.S. history. While the Texas neoconservative won two elections, he left the Republican Party in shambles and the American public weary enough of war and the party that they elected Barack Obama.
“President Bush embarrassed himself,” Mr. Bannon said in response to Bush’ recent public criticisms of President Trump. “It is clear he didn’t understand anything he was talking about. He had no idea whether he was coming or going. Just like when he was President of the United States. There has not been a more destructive presidency than George Bush’s.”
Even mentioning the name Bush elicited loud “boos” and harsh criticisms from the audience. The party’s voters rejected his brother in 2016, as well as a dozen other solid Republican candidates, in favor of Donald Trump. It’s a development the political class and Big Media still do not exhibit an ability to understand.
Mr. Bannon called for an “open revolt” against the “permanent political class,” which he called one of the great dangers the country faces. He said that the revolt will be carried out by united conservative movement and a “grassroots army.”
“It’s about one thing – are you a citizen of the United States of America?” Mr. Bannon asked the audience. “Economic nationalism is not what’s going to drive us apart, it’s what’s going to bring us together.”
He argued a nation is not just about number and measurable economic data, but an identity and common interest. The firebrand said American citizens should be given preference for jobs and be first in line to enjoy the economic opportunities the nation offers without having to compete against foreign and illegal labor.
“GDP isn’t everything. We are not an economy. We are a country. We have a social fabric. I’m a free market capitalist. That’s the underpinnings of our society,” he added. “Economic nationalism means ensuring that jobs that we have allowed to go to Asia come back to the United States.”
The Breitbart executive is supporting primary challengers across the nation to purge the Republican Party of unprincipled Establishment politicians who no longer represent the interest of working men and women in the country. However, Big Media, including Fox News, has attempted to paint this effort as one that will inevitably damage the Republican majorities in Congress.
There’s little evidence to support the theory as of yet, especially given the electoral success economic nationalism has had in the form of Donald Trump. Traditional Republicans have little hope to carry the Electoral College, but President Trump went on to carry states in Middle America Democrats haven’t lost since the 1980s.
Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., talks to reporters, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (Photo: AP)
President Donald Trump has branded Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., “Wacky Congresswoman Wilson” after she politicized his phone call with a military widow. He also tweeted that he hopes the “Fake News Media” continues to give her the platform she so desperately craves because the widely-criticized lawmaker is damaging the Democratic Party.
I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!
Rep. Wilson claimed President Trump told the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson that he knew what he was getting into, something just about every soldier–and every Green Beret–embraces. She was unable to even recall what President Trump actually said when pressed by reporters the day after.
President Trump is known for branding political opponents and, if past is prologue, it will not bode well for Rep. Wilson.
In her most recent comments, which came after White House Chief of Staff John Kelly slammed her during a press conference on Thursday, Rep. Wilson told The New York Times the “White House itself is full of white supremacists.”
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly at a press conference on October 19, 2017. (Photo: Screenshot)
General Kelly called her an “empty barrel” for using the death and widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson for political gain.
“It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on the conversation – absolutely stuns me,” he said. “And I thought at least that was sacred. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned.”
He continued:
When I was a kid growing up I thought a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That’s obviously not the case anymore as we’ve seen from recent cases. Life was sacred. That’s gone. Religion. That seems to be gone as well. Gold Star families, I think that left in the convention over the Summer. I just thought the selfless devotion that brings a man or woman to die in the battlefield, I thought that might be sacred.
The documents are from the probes conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In July, the National Archives and Records Administration (NAA) released over 400 previously unreleased documents on the assassination.
The dump contained an internal CIA memo dated 1975 that questioned whether Lee Harvey Oswald became motivated to kill President Kennedy after reading an Associated Press (AP) article in a newspaper. It quoted Fidel Castro saying, “U.S. leaders would be in danger if they helped in any attempt to do away with leaders of Cuba.”
But the CIA was seeking to block the declassification and release of the few remaining documents on the Kennedy assassination for another half-generation. It’s unclear what information they contain.
“The American public deserves to know the facts, or at least they deserve to know what the government has kept hidden from them for all these years,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics said in an email to AP.
A 1992 law requires that the National Archives to preserve the approximately 5 million pages of records surrounding the investigation. Mr. Sabato, who wrote The Kennedy Half-Century, said he suspects that some crucial records may also have been destroyed before the law was enacted.
Previously, I did the same thing for Richard Nixon, but noted that his record was universally awful. I couldn’t think of a single pro-growth policy when he was in the Oval Office.
President
Domestic Spending (Non-TARP)
Reagan
0.6%
Clinton
2.5%
Carter
2.8%
Obama
3.3%
G. W. Bush
3.9%
H. W. Bush
6.3%
Johnson
6.5%
Nixon
8.4%
Now let’s look at the Ronald Reagan. I analyzed his record last year, but mostly looking at the aggregate results.
So let’s look at the details, putting specific pro-growth policies in one column and specific anti-growth policies in another column. As you can see, there was a substantial net improvement during the Reagan years.
I gave extra credit for his tax cuts, the spending restraint, and the taming of inflation.
On the negative side of the ledger, Reagan did approve some post-1981 tax hikes, imposed some protectionism, and also supported Medicare expansion, so he certainly wasn’t perfect.
I also was tempted to give Reagan some credit for NAFTA and the WTO since those initiative got their start during his presidency, but that would break my rule of only counting policies that were implemented while a president was in office.
The bottom line is that Reagan was a net plus for economic liberty. And if you count the collapse of the Soviet Empire, he was a net plus for global liberty.
Let’s close by discussing Henry Olsen’s new book on Ronald Reagan. Henry tried to make the case that Reagan was sort of a New Deal Democrat rather than a libertarian-ish ideologue. Writing for the Claremont Review of Books, Steven Hayward obviously is a fan of the book but is not entirely sympathetic to Henry’s hypothesis.
You should read Steven’s entire review, and also get Henry’s book and read it as well. I’ll simply cite two passages from the review for the simple reason that they match my beliefs (shocking, huh?). First, Reagan (quite correctly) was not a big fan of the New Deal.
Reagan’s long-time economic adviser Martin Anderson once told me that despite Reagan’s general kind words for FDR and the New Deal, he could not recall Reagan ever endorsing a specific New Deal policy… But if anyone wants to see Reagan as the heir of the New Deal, he has to get past one of Reagan’s most famous critiques of it—his 1976 remark that “Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal.” …Reagan, to his campaign managers’ consternation, stoutly defended his comments. In August 1980 Reagan told dumbfounded reporters: “Anyone who wants to look at the writings of the Brain Trust of the New Deal will find that President Roosevelt’s advisers admired the fascist system. . . They thought that private ownership with government management and control a la the Italian system was the way to go, and that has been evident in all their writings.”
And he also opposed Washington-based income redistribution (another sensible view).
When Reagan opposed Nixon’s guaranteed annual income proposal, the Family Assistance Plan, in 1969 and 1970—the only governor in the country to do so—he said in a TV debate that “I believe that the government is supposed to promote the general welfare; I don’t think it is supposed to provide it.” If welfare was centralized in Washington, Reagan knew, reform would be all but impossible and there would be a bias toward increased spending in the future. …“If there is one area of social policy,” Reagan began to say in his standard stump speech, “that should be at the most local level of government possible, it is welfare. It should not be nationalized—it should be localized.” …In another 1982 speech to the NAACP (amidst a fierce recession), Reagan argued that the Great Society had done more harm than good for black Americans. Liberals howled with indignation about both of these heresies.
Amen.
I’m not a Reagan historian like Olson or Hayward, so I’ll wrap up this conversation with one small observation. Reagan was not as libertarian as I would like. I came to DC near the beginning of his second term and I remember feeling disappointed at the time that more progress could be made. I’ve now learned much more about the very weak records of other senior Republican and I now realize his accomplishment were large and meaningful.
It wasn’t just what he achieved. He also changed the “Overton Window,” meaning that he substantially expanded the acceptability of ideas about free markets and limited government. Prior to the Gipper’s tenure, Republicans rarely challenged the welfare state. They basically accepted the New Deal and Great Society. Reagan didn’t have much success unraveling welfare state programs, but he showed that such programs could be criticized and big-picture ideas about reform were not politically toxic.
P.S. Let’s also not forget that Reagan opposed the value-added tax. The rejection of a bad policy doesn’t belong on the above list, but it’s a notable piece of evidence about Reagan’s economic wisdom.
U.S. President Richard Nixon (L), listened to by First lady Pat Nixon and daughter Tricia Nixon (R), says goodbye to family and staff in the White House East Room on August 9, 1974. (Photo: Reuters)
A few days ago, using several methodologies, I calculated how fast government spending increased during the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
One of my big takeaways was that Republican presidents – with the exception of Reagan – allowed the burden of government spending to increase far too rapidly. Oftentimes faster than budgets grew under Democratic presidents.
That column generated a lot of feedback. And whether the responses were positive or negative, a common theme was that presidents shouldn’t be judged solely based on the growth of federal spending – both because Congress plays a big role and because there are many other policies that also matter when assessing economic policy.
President
Domestic Spending (Non-TARP)
Reagan
0.6%
Clinton
2.5%
Carter
2.8%
Obama
3.3%
G. W. Bush
3.9%
H. W. Bush
6.3%
Johnson
6.5%
Nixon
8.4%
I fully agree, and I explicitly noted that the relatively good spending numbers during the Obama years were because of policies – sequestration, shutdowns, etc – he opposed.
And I also concur that other policies matter. That’s one of the reasons I’m always highlightingEconomic Freedom of the World. Yes, fiscal policy is one of the variables, but monetary policy, trade policy, regulatory policy, and the rule of law are equally important.
Indeed, I did an overall assessment of Bill Clinton a few years ago, comparing the pro-growth polices that were adopted during his tenure with the anti-growth policies that were implemented.
The bottom line is that economic liberty increased during his presidency. Significantly. Others can debate about whether he deserves full credit, partial credit, or no credit, but what matters to me is that the overall burden of government shrank. And that was good for America.
It’s time to do an overall assessment of economic policy for other presidents. And we’ll start with one of America’s worst presidents, Richard Nixon.
He’s mostly infamous for Watergate, which led to his resignation, but he also should be scorned because every single major economic policy of his presidency expanded the size, scope, and power of the federal government. Here’s the list, with a couple of the items getting larger bars because the policies were so misguided.
Is it true that there were no good economic policies under Richard Nixon? I asked Art Laffer, who worked at the Office of Management and Budget at the time, whether there were any pro-market reforms during the Nixon years.
He mentioned that the top tax rate on labor and small business income was reduced from 70 percent to 50 percent as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1969. I would have included that law in the pro-growth column, except that was the legislation that also created the alternative minimum tax (for both households and corporations). And there was an increases in the tax burden on capital gains, as well as a more onerous tax regime for new investment. My assessment is that these bad provisions basically offset the lower tax rate.
For what it’s worth, Nixon also proposed a value-added tax, which is yet another piece of evidence that he was a terrible statist. But I only include policies that were enacted rather than merely proposed (if I did include proposed policies, Bill Clinton would take a hit for Hillarycare).
P.S. I’m open to revising this list. I probably missed some policies, perhaps even a good one. And maybe I’m overstating the negative impact of spending increases and price controls, or understating the bad consequences of other policies. Feel free to add your two cents in the comments section.
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