Category: Indiana Writers Group

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. In some ways, immigration is not all that difficult to analyze. The first key is an opening concept from the first course in Microeconomics. When immigrants come here to buy and sell, to work for employers and own businesses, to borrow and invest, and so on, they engage in a wide…

by T. Norman Van Cott Article 1, Section 10, Clause 2 in the Constitution of the United States has been instrumental in making the U.S. economy the powerhouse that it is today. How so, you say? It did so by curbing individual states’ ability to impose tariffs on goods and services coming from or going…

by Leo Morris I was spending a quiet day amusing myself with harmless diversions. I played a little guitar. I read a few chapters in a mystery novel. I watched part of an old movie on cable. I gave a Sunday newspaper the once-over. I studied my recipe for breakfast quiche to see if I…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. “An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain — the equality of all men.” — Ignazio Silone There has been tons of attention on income (and wealth) inequality in recent years — much of it driven by a nasty combination of ignorance and envy. For example, folks…

AN ELEPHANT HAS ENTERED THE ROOM of Indiana’s economic-development officialdom. Nobody wants to talk about the growing amount of research challenging its policy formula. It costs a lot and it doesn’t seem to work. An adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review last month described it in the inverse. He told a group of Indiana businessmen and…

 by Leo Morris You’ve already heard from Don McLean about “the day the music died.” Call this the day the laughter died. It wasn’t until I glimpsed the monster inside him that I realized how much Bill Cosby had meant to me growing up. Back then, he was the funny man who helped me get…

The following is based on comments made at a foundation luncheon April 12, 2018, in Fort Wayne. by Barry Keating, Ph.D. Jerry Brown was elected governor of California in 1974 and again in 1978 before busying himself as mayor of Oakland. Californians in 2010 apparently wanted to return to the days of “Governor Moonbeam,” as…

“Things reveal themselves passing away. “ — William Butler Yeats Reading analysis of the disaster that was the monologue at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the thought occurs: Can an entire generation in a given profession fail to reach maturity? The old newsroom guard had warned precisely of that. They said modern journalists lacked…

by Leo Morris When I was a kid like you, I used to tell high school classes, people kept warning me to quit shooting my mouth off before I got into trouble. Now, I said, I’ve found the perfect job as an editorial writer. I get to shoot my mouth off every day, and they…

by Jason Arp Earlier this month, a group of Indiana businessmen, government officials and think-tank members were fortunate enough to host perhaps the state’s most preeminent economist. Dr. Barry Keating is a professor of economics and business analytics at the University of Notre Dame where he is the past chair of the Department of Finance. Dr. Keating…