Update: The Cyprus parliament has rejected the savings tax unanimously . For now. The rejection came in spite of modifications to the proposal that would have exempted the first €20,000  ($25,894) deposited from the tax. By Bill Wilson — The Politeuro strikes again. A recent €10 billion ($13 billion) European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package to prop up Cyprus’ banking system that lost billions on Greek debt comes with a very curious string […]

By Bill Wilson — Barack Obama wants to double the U.S. quota subscription in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to $130 billion from its current $65 billion level. This is the foreign aid organization that has been busy bailing out Greece, Portugal, and Ireland with $86.6 billion. U.S. taxpayers have been responsible for about 20 percent of those bailouts, or approximately […]

NRD Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared at Investor’s Business Daily . By Bill Wilson — Of all the federal agencies engaging in “bold, persistent experimentation” with our economy in recent years, U.S. President Barack Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been among the boldest, most persistent and most […]

By Bill Wilson — We are all Krugmanistas now. On the political left and right, there is a perception, succinctly articulated by the New York Times’ Paul Krugman that “[W]e have our own currency” and the government “literally can’t run out of money. After all, it can print the stuff.” In short, because the Federal Reserve is […]

By Bill Wilson — Barack Obama has nominated Gina McCarthy to replace Lisa Jackson as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). And unless Senate Republicans mount a filibuster, she will undoubtedly be confirmed. McCarthy is really not an exceptional nominee. Not very different from prior EPA […]

NRD Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared at the Washington Examiner . By Bill Wilson — In June 2011, 11-year-old Skylar Capo saved a baby woodpecker from her family’s cat. “I’ve just always loved animals,” the aspiring veterinarian told her local news station. “I couldn’t stand to watch it […]

By Bill Wilson — “If you kick your core voters hard enough, Mr. Cameron, they might kick back.” That was former Conservative Party chairman and Margaret Thatcher cabinet minister Norman Tebbit’s take on the very poor showing by the Tories in a Feb. 28 special election for the Eastleigh of Hampshire seat in the British House of Commons , behind the UK Independence Party and Liberal Democrat candidates. Tories in the United Kingdom were shocked when their candidate […]

By Bill Wilson — Time for a little history lesson. Sequestration may in fact have been Obama’s idea, but it was brought to the floor in the House of Representatives not once , but twice by Republican leaders. There, it was approved not once , but twice . In the Senate it passed easily with bipartisan […]

By Bill Wilson — 41 percent. That was all the Euro establishment in Italy could get to vote in favor of ceding sovereignty to the European Union in that country’s latest parliamentary elections . The elections came after former Prime Minister Mario Monti stepped aside after his unpopular budget was adopted. The […]

NRD Editor’s Note: This column was originally published at Forbes.com. By Bill Wilson — In a city known for its perpetual evasion of responsibility and chronic shifting of blame, Washington D.C.’s sequester debate is more of the same — albeit with an interesting twist. Ordinarily spending debates in our […]