Economy
May 20, 2022 — John Hinderaker
In a banana republic, what do you do when your citizens don’t have enough money because of your socialist economic policies? Simple: print more money! There was a time when we thought American politics were above such insanity, but those days are gone. The Biden administration’s multi-trillion dollar money-printing spree has launched the worst inflation since the Carter administration and the longest collapse of the Dow since 1932. Nice going,
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May 14, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Earlier this week I quoted from President Biden’s May 10 remarks on the economy (correction in transcript): “Senator Rick Scott of Wisconsin [Florida], a member of the Senate Republican leadership, laid it all out in a plan. It’s the Ultra-MAGA Agenda.” If you wondered whence the “Ultra-MAGA” shtick suddenly materialized, as I have, Washington Post reporters Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer have arrived with the answer. You had to know
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April 24, 2022 — John Hinderaker
In 1973, Time magazine famously praised Minnesota as “the state that works.” Its cover photo of Governor Wendell Anderson holding a Northern made Minnesota politicians, especially Democrats, delirious with joy. The Time article praised Minnesota’s political leadership for, among other things, having the courage to enact substantial tax increases. Unfortunately, in succeeding years our politicians have rarely lacked for “courage,” and things have not turned out as Time foretold in
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April 18, 2022 — Steven Hayward
The hottest new thing for Woke Wall Street is “ESG” investing, where ESG stands for “environment, social, and governance.” In other words, investing in politically correct sectors like “green” energy, media, and so forth, and avoiding investing in tobacco, arms manufacturers, and above all fossil fuel energy companies. ESG has become, Barron’s reports, “one of Wall Streets favorite buzzwords.” Only the name and acronym are new. Twenty years ago “sustainable”
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April 2, 2022 — John Hinderaker
For a number of years, Americans have been moving, on net, from blue states to red states. That trend was accentuated by the coronavirus epidemic, as living in red states was generally a lot more normal, and pleasant, than living in blue states. This chart shows the net migration of income in and out of states during the pandemic. There are no surprises: California, New York, and Illinois were huge
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March 11, 2022 — Steven Hayward
[P]resident Biden is likely looking to import one of those Canadian trucker bouncy houses for his poll numbers (and the economy), because his approval ratings are not getting any air. From the latest Wall Street Journal poll out today: Biden, Democrats Lose Ground on Key Issues, WSJ Poll Finds WASHINGTON—President Biden and his fellow Democrats have lost ground to Republicans on several of the issues most important to voters, a
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January 26, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Some jurisdictions pursued aggressive shutdown strategies to “fight” covid, while others did not. These shutdowns made no apparent difference in covid rates, but they had devastating consequences for the livelihoods of millions of Americans. Among the hardest hit businesses were restaurants. Here in Minnesota, the restaurant business has suffered severe and in many cases mortal blows. Things continue to trend downward, as the city has imposed yet another mask mandate
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January 24, 2022 — Steven Hayward
The stock market today opened down sharply—the Dow was off 900 points early in the day—before staging a late rally to close in the green. Still, the last week has been ugly. Strap in for a lot more volatility until the Fed is done finding its rear end with both hands—likely many many months from now. It is not news that traditional energy stocks—coal, natural gas, and oil—were the stock
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January 18, 2022 — Steven Hayward
• The Wall Street Journal reports this morning: Texas, Arizona Have Recovered All the Jobs Lost When Covid-19 Hit Texas and Arizona have joined two other states in recovering all the jobs they lost at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, leading a trend that is expected to include another dozen states by the middle of this year. The states, which also include Utah and Idaho, have benefited from demographic
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January 4, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Everyone knows that millions of people are leaving blue states and moving to red states, but I still haven’t have heard the liberal line on the phenomenon. They have to come up with an explanation other than the obvious one–liberal policies don’t work, and create inferior living conditions–but what is it? I am all ears. Mark Perry lists the top ten states that are gaining and losing residents (raw numbers,
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January 2, 2022 — Steven Hayward
I think it is time to retire the “Civil War on the Left” series and replace it with The Liberal Crackup, because the left is indeed crumbling. And let’s start with the genius idea for a remedy for inflation: price controls! That’s the recommendation from (who else) The Guardian: We have a powerful weapon to fight inflation: price controls. It’s time we consider it By Isabella Weber (assistant professor of economics
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December 16, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Harvard Professor Robert Barro is Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard. He is a prominent member of the economics profession. AEI has posted his December 4 Project Syndicate column “Big-state inflation.” In the column he addresses the attribution of responsibility for our current inflation to “supply chain” issues. Professor Barro does not entirely discount the contribution of these issues as a contributing factor. Focusing on the contribution of
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December 14, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
I hate inflation, but there’s something delicious about the fact that this problem, above all others, is responsible for the low esteem in which voters currently hold Joe Biden and his party. Inflation is reality’s “F-you” to a central element of liberal hubris — the view that the government can do whatever the hell it wants by way of spending, energy policy, etc. and suffer no bad economic consequences. How
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December 13, 2021 — Steven Hayward
You’d think it would hardly need restating that inflation is chiefly caused by monetary profligacy by the government (especially the Federal Reserve and other central banks that think they can “create” money out of thin air), but the Biden Administration began on an ominous note with Slow Joe proclaiming that “Milton Friedman isn’t in charge any more.” Well, the CPI seems to have something to say about that. Economist and
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December 3, 2021 — John Hinderaker
I don’t believe we have yet commented on today’s disappointing jobs report. Economists had expected the BLS to report 550,000 net new jobs, but instead there were only 210,000. The nation is still struggling to recreate the economy that we had under President Trump, before it was devastated by covid shutdowns. The Democrats try to spin people going back to work as strong “job creation,” but in fact we are
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November 29, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Throughout the last decade, Greece’s economy was a basket case. Lally Weymouth of the Washington Post reminds us that Greece endured a crippling depression in which it lost one-fourth of its GDP. The nation’s banks nearly collapsed and European Union officials contemplated expelling Greece from the EU. But in 2019, the Greeks dumped the leftist government of Alexis Tsipras and replaced it with a center-right government led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
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November 16, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Scott has described the stages of spin that the Biden administration has deployed in response to skyrocketing inflation: It’s transitory! It’s good for you! You can afford it! The administration’s efforts are laughable, but unfortunately, it is the rest of us who are paying the price. Literally. Recognizing that most people experience inflation tangibly in the rising cost of staple commodities, my organization has put up 30 physical billboards and
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