Commentary/Opinion
Opinion: Index Confirms State’s Reddish Tint
By John Hood RALEIGH — How is the North Carolina Republican Party doing? The answer is 58. No, I haven’t come up with the #ncpol equivalent of The Hitchhiker’s Guide…
You Decide: Will 2023 Be Naughty Or Nice?
By Mike Walden The traditional holiday question to children, “Have you been naughty or nice,” is a perfect lead-in to the economic outlook in 2023. As 2022 ends and 2023…
Opinion: Carolina Leader Sides With Christmas
By John Hood RALEIGH — Josephus Daniels, one of the most prominent North Carolinians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, played a key role in a story that…
Opinion: Most Pundits Miss Key Points Of N.C. Redistricting Dispute
By Mitch Kokai John Locke Foundation Lawyers and pundits have written tens of thousands of words about the Moore v. Harper case at the U.S. Supreme Court. Surprisingly few of those words…
You Decide: Is Economics About More Than Jobs And Inflation?
By Mike Walden Every time there is trouble looming for the economy, my schedule of presentations and interviews explodes. It happened during my more than 40 years on the North…
Opinion: Carolina Leaders Should Heed Cicero
By John Hood RALEIGH — North Carolina has an official state bird (the Northern Cardinal), an official state reptile (the Eastern Box Turtle), an official state insect (the honeybee), an…
You Decide: Where Can We Cut Back?
By Mike Walden Both of my grandfathers were farmers in southwestern Ohio. One had a hog farm and the other raised beef cows. This was a century ago, and farming…
You Decide: If Inflation Subsides, Will Everything Be OK?
By Mike Walden I came to Raleigh and joined the North Carolina State University faculty in 1978. Then, manufacturing dominated the North Carolina economy. Manufacturing production accounted for almost a…
You Decide: Do We First Need Economic Pain To Have Economic Gain?
By Mike Walden I started lifting weights when I was in graduate school at Cornell University in the early 1970s. I joined a group—appropriately called the “barbell club”—that trained in…
Opinion: Don’t That Just Beat All?
By John Hood RALEIGH – I’ve been writing a newspaper column since 1986. During that time, I’ve had occasion to criticize the policies of six North Carolina governors: Jim Martin,…
You Decide: Is The Social Safety Net A Spring Board Or A Cushion?
By Mike Walden There are few public issues that create more debate than the “social safety net.” By social safety net, I mean the set of government policies, programs and…
You Decide: Should The Fed Stop Influencing Interest Rates?
By Mike Walden The Federal Reserve (the “Fed”) is now in the process of increasing interest rates. This is a tactic the Fed uses when it wants to slow the…
