From the perspective of the corporate profit and loss statement, a trading loss is one expense item in the context of all revenues and expenses. So $2 billion should be compared to the bank's $26.7 billion in pretax profits for 2011, suggesting a reduction of something less than 10 percent in annual profit.

The first order of business for a Republican president next year should be corporate-tax reform. But even if Republicans win big in the fall, undoing America's largest policy error will be an almost impossible political lift, unless enough people in both parties come to grips with the counterintuitive economics of corporate-tax reform.

Export-related jobs are a huge and important driver of the U.S. economy, and the record of the Ex-Im Bank is clear: Using private funds and with minimal exposure to taxpayers, it has been a major driver of U.S. exports and a driver of jobs and corporate profits in the United States.

The "Buffett Rule's" stated goal of making millionaires pay the same tax rates as the middle class is appealing. Unfortunately, the proposal is based on inaccurate claims about the tax system and its enactment would penalize the investment that fuels long-run economic growth.

Losing money is embarrassing. And an embarrassed Jamie Dimon publicly admitted that J.P. Morgan Chase goofed. Three senior executives lost their jobs as a result. But politicians and regulators in Washington are rushing to leverage the bank's misfortune for their own gain.

Critics have renewed their calls to tax the carried interest as ordinary income. Unfortunately, the populist rhetoric used by some critics can obscure the facts about how carried interest is actually taxed.

In a just-published piece in Tax Notes, AEI economists Kevin Hassett and Alan Viard explain how targeted tax increases on big oil companies pose significant risks to the economy.

For-profits and nonprofits both have a place in delivering quality education. Education policies should define the desired outcomes from government spending without specifying the processes used to achieve those outcomes.