Chicago Tribune: Squeezy isn't selling snake oil

Quinn unveiled with great fanfare Squeezy the Pension Python, a mascot that is part of a marketing campaign to encourage pension reform. You didn't wake up under a circus tent. This is real government at work, the Playskool version. "Pensions for Dummies."

State Journal-Register: Apparent Hostess closing hits home in Springfield

The apparent demise of Hostess Brands hit home in Springfield this week. The big guys fight, and the little guy gets the bloody nose.

RealClearMarkets: A cure for blue state fiscal blues

While a budget compromise that avoids the fiscal cliff seems likely, Blue states will still be the biggest losers because the President is demanding significant tax increases.

Must-Reads for November 20

Forbes: George Soros & PBS V. Arthur Laffer

Heath acknowledges traditional dentistry fails the poor, but does not seem to care. In his world, investors help poor kids find dental care is far worse than leaving children in pain.

The American: Lenders and spenders: confronting the political reality of debt

The Fed is going to be caught between a rock and a hard place. If it fights inflation, the political system will be stressed by the challenge of allocating budgetary pain. If it fails to fight inflation, it risks hyperinflation.

Defining Ideas: The flat tax solution

A sound tax system has as few moving parts as possible. We should scrap the current system in favor of a flat tax on consumption.

Must-Reads for November 19

Chicago Tribune: It's worse than you thought

Keep reading and you learn that the committee isn't saying the system is mathematically unfixable. The problem is that Illinois pols lack the courage to take four steps the committee views as absolutely necessary.

State Journal-Register: Fixing the unfixable

Just for the record, there are 35 lawmakers who will be out of office after Jan. 9, when newly elected legislators are seated. They don’t have to worry about how a pension reform vote will affect their next election.

The Telegraph: West falling into economic no growth black hole

No government in what used to be called "the free world" seems prepared to take the steps that can stop this inexorable decline. They are all busily telling their electorates that austerity is for other people (France), or that the piddling attempts they have made at it will solve the problem (Britain), or that taxing "the rich" will make it unnecessary for government to cut back its own spending (America).

RealClearMarkets: Cows flee California seeking a better economic climate

It's hard to find a government program as insane as the complex web of price supports, market orders, direct payments, diversion programs, herd reductions, import barriers, export subsidies, and stacked-to-the-rafters cheese warehouses that characterize Uncle Sam's efforts to "rationally manage" the dairy market.