Americans did not suffer alone. World trade overall fell two-thirds in the first few years of the Depression.
— Elaine Chao
The Democratic Party's governing elite has long believed there is no problem that European-style policies cannot cure.
Activist shareholder resolutions do not have to pass to succeed. The process itself can be so injurious to a company that management will cave to demands.
Rising energy costs kill jobs and hit America's poorest the hardest.
The OPPA route is nothing new. It follows the decades-old liberal agenda on trade, health care, global warming, and mass unionization. That agenda has never brought prosperity to workers.
Government at all levels has kicked the fiscal can down the road for far too long.
Confidence, capital, and credit fuel entrepreneurship and economic expansion.
The borrow-spend-and-centralize agenda that has been so destructive to job creation elsewhere in America has been a gravy boat inside the Beltway.
President Obama has been admirably pro-trade in public remarks, but there has been no progress in moving any new free trade agreements to expand exports abroad and create jobs at home.
America's competitive advantage lies in its human talent. All of us should be doing everything we can to cultivate and develop our work force.
To better deal with shortages of qualified applicants now and in the future, government policy makers need to acknowledge that government job training programs could stand improvement.
Policymakers, elected and unelected, need to be ever-mindful that the U.S. economy does not exist in isolation.
For significant job creation to occur, prospective entrepreneurs and current business owners must not fear the future or be under assault from their own government in the present.
News-free existence is not a serious proposal, but it is worth noting that while today's 24/7 media environment is wonderful in many ways, it can also be like drinking out of a fire hose and intensify a downward reinforcing cycle of despair.
Three years after the four deepest previous recessions began - in 1953, 1957, 1973 and 1981 - employment was on average 4.7% higher than the pre-recession peak.
Never far from my thoughts are memories of being a little girl in Queens, N.Y., our family of five crowded in a small one-bedroom apartment, struggling to learn English and survive a new life in a new country, America. We humbly and gratefully still recall the kindnesses shown by strangers and neighbors who became new friends.
As we celebrate Women's History Month this March, it's important to remember the key role women have played in promoting a better understanding and relationships between our country and the rest of the world.
When the Smoot-Hawley bill landed on President Herbert Hoover's desk, more than 1,000 economists urged him to veto it. Tragically, the president ignored their pleas.
The Obama administration's zeal to not 'waste a good crisis,' as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it, has been stunning even for Washington insiders to behold.
Left-wing shareholder activists seek to leverage the mass economic power of institutional investors such as pension funds, whose managers are supposed to focus strictly on their fiduciary responsibilities to retirees.
Smoot and Hawley ginned up The Tariff Act of 1930 to get America back to work after the Stock Market Crash of '29. Instead, it destroyed trade so effectively that by 1932, American exports to Europe were just a third of what they had been in 1929. World trade fell two-thirds as other nations retaliated. Jobs evaporated.
Taxpayers should demand that their states honestly assess public pension plans, accurately measure the assets and liabilities, and take steps to provide fair benefits to public employees that limit taxpayers' liability.
Most private sector workers can only dream of getting the generous lifetime pension and health benefits typical of government service.
To foster entrepreneurship, expansion and job creation, more leaders at all levels of government have to demonstrate some understanding of what it takes to build and grow businesses in the private sector.
Washington's parasitic approach to the private sector must change for there to be widespread, near-term and enduring prosperity and job creation.
Around the time President Lyndon B. Johnson was declaring a War on Poverty in the 1960s, federal, state and local governments began accelerating a veritable War on the Private Sector.
To maintain their own competitiveness, workers need to attain and stay current on the qualifications needed to advance in a constantly evolving economy.
We need long-term tax reform that promotes private sector job creation. And legislated mandates that kill jobs by raising the cost of payrolls need to be eliminated.
America needs a new approach to boost the economy - one that does not doom future generations to being saddled with paying off today's federal deficits.
Confidence, capital, and new markets fuel entrepreneurship and job-generating expansion of existing businesses.
We Americans typically are more positive about our individual futures, which we have some control over, than we are the nation's or the world's, which we see largely through the media prism.
Though the National Bureau of Economic Research deemed the recession to have ended in June 2009, to most Americans, that conclusion seems not to square with reality.
Perhaps the original layaway angel knew from experience, or simply deduced, that people resorting to the old-fashioned installment method of layaway may be struggling financially.
The work of these women doesn't end when they return home from overseas, as one goal of the Peace Corps' mission is to help promote a better understanding of other cultures here in the United States.
European-style interventions to which the Obama administration is inclined will not make America more competitive in the world-wide economy. Such policies will not increase growth, will not decrease unemployment, and will not increase wages for workers.
The Obama administration likes to say that it is 'pro-worker.' But something is amiss when its labor priorities are forcing unionization and labor contracts on American workplaces, and denying union members information on how their dues money is spent.
Activists have every right to espouse their views of utopia.
Consider trade protectionism. It's been tried - and found wanting - since the Great Depression.
Where public pensions are concerned, many jurisdictions are running out of road.
As tough as it is for many college graduates to get their planned careers on track, it could be worse: They could be trying to find a job without a college degree.
Even a healthy economy and labor market would have struggled under the additional expenses enacted and proposed in 2009 and 2010 - from healthcare mandates and higher taxes, to carbon cap-and-trade and delay in extending the last decade's tax reforms.
The expenses of complying with Washington's torrent of mandates and regulatory overreach are costing American workers jobs and income growth.
America's private sector job creators need elected leaders to lead and get out of the way.
Employers should overcome a myopic quarterly earnings posture and focus on long-term strategies for growth that include investing in their own skills-training efforts to enable a broader pool of applicants.
There should be an immediate moratorium on federal regulations that endanger jobs.
Capital available for individuals to start and expand businesses would increase with regulatory and strategic tax reforms, like reducing marginal rates, repealing the alternative minimum tax, and making the U.S. the most welcoming place for employers to relocate and create jobs.
The greatest job creation is driven by entrepreneurs and young businesses, so they merit special attention.
While there have been news reports of recent college graduates living with their parents because they have been unable to find a job paying a salary sufficient to move out, their near and long-term career prospects remain far brighter than for those without a college degree.
Because of these layaway angels, many children did not have to wonder why Santa skipped them in 2011.
There are many reasons to worry; the evening news is full of them.
