Economy

Living the Luxe Life

Featured image I am so old, I can remember when “public servants” used to earn less money than they could have expected in the private sector. But those days are long gone. Now, government employees have the rest of us by the throat. Our tax dollars are enriching them, on the average, far beyond what they could earn anywhere else. This is from Stephen Moore’s Committee to Unleash Prosperity: The average cost »

DEI Destroys CHIPS

Featured image DEI (racial and other quotas) is intrinsically evil. At The Hill, Matt Cole and Chris Nicholson reveal a shocking, practical downside to DEI hysteria: “DEI killed the CHIPS Act.” The issue is critical because Taiwan now produces 90% of the world’s advanced microchips, and China has indicated its intention to annex Taiwan in the near future. So the CHIPS Act sought to incentivize chip production in the U.S. Unfortunately, that »

SOTU Response, By the Numbers

Featured image Earlier today, I posted the official GOP response to Joe Biden’s SOTU hate-fest, by Senator Katie Britt. Britt’s speech was an impressive performance in its own way; if I were a Democrat, I think she would scare me. But for us data guys, Stephen Moore’s Unleash Prosperity Hotline has the numbers: A lot of tall tales and a few outright fabrications in the Biden speech last night – and far »

Life of Brian

Featured image Brian Deese is “an MIT Innovation Fellow, focusing on the impact of economic policies that strengthen the United States’ industrial capacity and on accelerating climate investment and innovation.” Before that, Deese assisted Joe Biden as Director of the National Economic Council. Asked in 2022 how American families could cope with surging gasoline prices, the NEC boss said, “this is about the future of the liberal world order, and we have »

The price of inflation

Featured image Jeffrey Anderson presents a comparative analysis of presidents and inflation. The mainstream press to the contrary notwithstanding, he explains what Biden has done to make us feel so black and blue. It’s not our imagination. It’s the inflation, stupid! See his City Journal column “No great mystery.” Anderson manages to review the data and perform the analysis with a sense of humor. The daycare minders at the White House have »

The Train Wreck of Price Controls

Featured image Having unleashed a wave of inflation not seen for more than 40 years, Democrats naturally are shocked to discover inflation is not popular with Americans. So naturally liberals are dredging up the only policy worse than inflation as a proposed remedy—price controls! What a great idea. Our friends and Kite & Key Media are on it, and offer this nice treatment of the issue. Not that any liberals are capable »

Sports Illustrated to Cease Publication?

Featured image One iconic cultural institution after another has collapsed in recent years, but this still seems shocking: while news accounts are somewhat confusing, it appears that all or nearly all employees of Sports Illustrated magazine have received layoff notices. Sports Illustrated belongs to Authentic Brands Group, which licensed the magazine to Arena Group Holdings. The present layoffs apparently are the result of Arena’s failing to make its quarterly license payment. Hollywood »

Freedom Equals Prosperity

Featured image Why do some countries prosper, and others don’t? That is actually a very easy question to answer. People become prosperous unless their governments stop them. Freedom begets prosperity, every time. This video from Kite and Key Media makes the point simply, but overwhelmingly. It won’t come as a surprise to you, but you may want to send the link to your liberal brother-in-law: We can add this observation: there are »

The Welfare-Industrial Complex

Featured image The Biden administration brags about the number of jobs being created, but given our rather slack economy it is reasonable to wonder what kind of jobs they are. At the Wall Street Journal, Allysia Finley has a sobering answer: Drill into the nation’s 3.7% unemployment rate, and you’ll find a growing welfare-industrial complex beneath the seemingly strong labor market. Government, social assistance and healthcare account for 56% of the 2.8 »

Americans Vote Red With Their Feet

Featured image It has been obvious for quite a while that Americans are deserting blue states in favor of red states. Thus, after the last census states like California and New York lost seats in the House, while states like Florida and Texas gained seats. Just-released census data show that migration from blue to red continues. The New York Post focuses, naturally, on New York: New York’s population plunged more than any »

Outside China, Rare Earths Are Rare

Featured image The Chinese Communist Party may be evil, but it isn’t stupid. It has been working on dominating the world’s supply of critical minerals for quite a few years now. Geopolitical Monitor has “A Brief History of US-China Rare Earth Rivalry.” First, a little background: Rare earth elements (REEs), comprising 17 (15 commercially relevant) chemical elements and soft heavy-metals like Thulium and Cerium, are vital in modern technologies from cell phones »

Those Lucky Argentines

Featured image Economist Javier Milei is Argentina’s newly-elected president. Apparently inflation finally got so bad that in desperation, the voters turned to someone who actually understands economics. But in addition to being an academic, Milei is a media personality and an articulate advocate for libertarian and conservative positions. This minute and a half clip from an interview is the most cogent commentary I have seen from a politician in a long time. »

The persistence of Hayek

Featured image I was surprised to read what I thought was an exceedingly fair and illuminating review of two new books on Friedrich Hayek in the current (December 7) issue of the New York Review of Books. The review is by the financial historian Edward Chancellor. In “The Naturalist” he takes up Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950, by Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger, and Liberalism’s Last Man: Hayek in the Age of Political »

Vaclav Klaus, After All

Featured image SALZBURG, Austria, October 19—Back in August of 1990 I attended my first-ever meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Munich, West Germany, not far from my current temporary location. I was still a sluggish graduate student at the time, long past when I should have completed my dissertation, but somehow I had contrived to snag a fellowship to attend, and present a paper whose precise topic I don’t now recall, »

Record Number of Voters Prefer GOP On Economy

Featured image This is from Stephen Moore’s excellent Unleash Prosperity Hotline, a daily email that you can subscribe to here. I recommend it: Yesterday’s other big news was this survey result from GALLUP, with a question they have been asking since 1951 with Republicans never scoring higher than right now: “Looking ahead for the next few years, which political party do you think will do a better job of keeping the country »

Poll: Nearly Half of Americans Under 30 Support Sending US Troops to Defend Ukraine

Featured image A CBS News/YouGov poll found that 48% of adults under the age of 30 support sending U.S. troops to defend Ukraine. I’m rather struck by such a high number given that the military is failing to reach recruitment goals among this very demographic. Perhaps they feel it’s a good idea as long as it isn’t them being sent to the front lines. The numbers drop off sharply among older age »

Et Tu, BLS? (With Comment from Steve)

Featured image I guess we shouldn’t be surprised when a federal agency is politicized. Better we should be surprised to find one that isn’t. Now, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (to be fair, the Department of Labor generally) has been enlisted in the Biden/Newsom re-election campaign. ZeroHedge and Kevin Roche have been on this case for a while. Kevin summarizes: For several months I have following, directly in the Bureau of Labor »