One of the main provisions of the 2012 Farm Bill is a “shallow-loss” program. This program is being portrayed as a safety net, but there are significant questions that must be examined before the program is enacted. At this event, Vince Smith and Barry Goodwin will discuss these questions and will release new research and analysis on the cost of shallow-loss programs.

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.

Obama wanted to raise capital gains rates even if the government got less revenue because of "fairness." Evidently he likes taking people's money away. What he doesn't explain is why this makes anyone better off.

In the run-up to this weekend's G-8 summit at Camp David, journalists have unfavorably compared European "austerity" with Barack Obama's economic policies.

The European Union (EU) has announced plans to levy a tax on airline emissions for all planes landing and taking off from EU airports. This tax would be calculated not only based on mileage flown in EU airspace but also for the entire length of the flight (thus, Chinese and Japanese airlines would be taxed for an entire journey from Beijing or Tokyo).

This event will address the problems and improvements needed for student loans, beginning with a keynote presentation by former secretary of education Bill Bennett.

Here is another good news/bad news column about the 112th Congress.

The consequences for health spending and federal revenues of an above-the-line deduction for out-of-pocket health spending can be specified as a function of behavioral parameters.