Opinion
Accurate Accounting of Renewable Energy Costs
Advocates miss the mark when they contend that renewable energy offers a one-for-one trade-off for traditional energy sources.
Opinion
Work Is What Works
Politicians don’t lead their communities to prosperity by making it easier for people who lose jobs to remain on public assistance in perpetuity.
Opinion
Stumbling Around on Incentives
To award government favors without employing a realistic financial model is to set yourself up for a pretty big stumble.
Opinion
From Disaster Rises Reform
It would be best if it didn’t take a disaster, natural or educational, for North Carolina policymakers to recognize the error of their ways.
Opinion
Opportunity Costs: The Sacrifice of the Road Not Traveled
During his State of the Union address, the president unwittingly underscored the importance of considering both “seen” and “unseen” consequences of political choices.
Opinion
The Problem with Political Math
Many North Carolina politicians genuinely believe that the best way to make our state a more attractive place to do business is to increase the cost of doing business here.
Opinion
Another Round In The Eternal Debate
RALEIGH – Consider yourself lucky – you’ve just been witness to momentous events likely to be the subject of spirited political and academic debate for many decades to come.
Opinion
Looking Through Port-Holes
The state ports at Morehead City and Wilmington are picking up business that was previously headed to New Orleans. But if there’s truly a long-run trend at play here, let private firms decide what to do next.
Opinion
Is We Is Or Is We Isn’t
The Barbed Wire Choir said it best, even if they didn't say it first: give us criminals—we need the prison jobs. Prisons, and by implication crime, can be desirable engines of economic growth, according to some. And now, Governor Easley has gotten into the prison act.
Opinion
The Lorax
There's good news in environmentally-conscious circles with a new study on recycling— the recycling industry is creating jobs across North Carolina. According to Recycling Means Business! The Impact of Recycling on North Carolina's Economy, the state's 'recycling economy' is booming.
Opinion
Tsunami and the Broken Window
Among the many myths that persist when disaster strikes is the one that the consequences of the disaster will wind up being a blessing in disguise. Frederic Bastiat captured the essence of this idea in his 1850 essay, "That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen," perhaps better known as the Parable of the Broken Window, or the broken window fallacy.
Opinion
No. 643: Fiction, Fact and Freezing in the Ice Storm
The ice storm that paralyzed hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians in December set off much discussion about its impact and meaning. As with anything, some of this discussion has been useful, but other of it widely missed the mark. Let me take this opportunity to set the record straight, as I see it, on the real story of the ice storm and its aftermath.
