Word: economists
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...could have spent your life very comfortably as a senior Fed economist...
That may well be the way in which the gas tax becomes more attractive: by default. "Everything else is worse," says economist Lester Thurow, dean of M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management. For instance, Congress will be loath to fiddle with personal income tax rates so soon after the landmark Tax Reform Act of 1986. And while additional "sin" levies on alcohol and tobacco will be an option, they would raise far less revenue than a comparable gasoline-tax hike. At the same time, a national sales tax would be a complex experiment that lawmakers seem unlikely...
Hayek, an economist Reagan admires, preached that the free market conquers all. During the first term, such nostrums were handy tools for trimming some obsolete domestic programs and reducing marginal tax rates. But when Reagan reached those goals, he lacked intellectual material for a second act worthy of the first. Here another of his weaknesses came into play with devastating effect. Throughout his career his detached management style made him depend heavily on his senior advisers. After his 1984 electoral triumph, his fatigued White House staff needed relief. Instead of reorganizing it himself, Reagan allowed his then chief of staff...
Perhaps the most damning indictment of the Soviet economy was published late last month by economist Alexander Zaychenko in the monthly journal of the Institute of U.S.A. and Canada Studies. He charged that Soviet food products, housing, health care and consumer goods are not only poor in quality but also among the most expensive in the world in terms of the labor needed to produce them. As for the Soviet diet, which contains 28 lbs. of meat annually, according to official figures, Zaychenko scoffed that 10 lbs. of that is actually lard and bone, and calculated that the average Soviet...
Despite the risks, a vocal minority of economists offer a relatively bullish outlook. Among them: Yardeni, Kudlow, Nakagama and J. Paul Horne, the Paris-based chief international economist for Smith Barney. The optimists believe that the economy is not overheating and that significant progress has already been made in managing the budget deficit. Says Kudlow: "The important thing is that the deficit is coming down. It is the direction that is far more important than the level of the deficit." Echoes Nakagama: "The worst is behind...