Ryan McMaken | The Libertarian Institute

Price Inflation Slows, But the Economy Keeps Getting Worse

by Ryan McMaken | Jan 26, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released new Producer Price Index (PPI) data on Wednesday, and it looks like the rate of increase in price inflation is slowing. Nonetheless, year-over-year price inflation in December remained near 40-year highs, and shows the marketplace is still dealing with the nearly six-trillion-dollar surge in the money supply that took place during 2020 and 2021. The PPI is a measure of prices at the production phase of goods and services. Prior to 1978, the index was known as the Wholesale Price Index. In December, year-over-year PPI growth came in at 6.2 percent...

The Idea of Making a ‘Trillion Dollar Coin’ Is Still Dumb

by Ryan McMaken | Jan 24, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles

Here we go again. Every few years in Congress there is a purely political battle over the debt ceiling. We're supposed to be horrified and worried that the U.S. might default on some of its debt. Some commentators will insist the U.S. has never defaulted, and that default be a disaster. (That's wrong, by the way. The U.S. has defaulted before.) But these debt ceiling debates always end the same way. Congress ends up increasing the debt ceiling and the U.S.'s national debt continues to spiral upward. During all the theatrics over the debt ceiling, however, many strange ideas are put forward...

Joe Biden Is Lying About the Jobs Numbers

by Ryan McMaken | Jan 11, 2023 | Economics, Featured Articles

The personal savings rate is near seventeen-year lows. Credit card debt is at record levels. Millions of prime-age workers have quit the job market, and full-time employment continues to wither. On the other hand, the Biden Administration wants you to think things have never been better. Last week, following the release of December's jobs data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Biden crowed that “Real wages are up in recent months...and we are seeing welcome signs that inflation is coming down as well." Biden concluded by saying "it's a good time to be a worker in America." Unfortunately,...

Where Have All the Working Men Gone?

by Ryan McMaken | Dec 29, 2022 | Economics, Featured Articles

Last week, CNN featured a story called "Men are dropping out of the workforce. Here's why" The article went on to tell us virtually nothing at all about why so many men are leaving the workforce. Although as many as seven million men have stayed out of the workforce for varying reasons, the CNN piece was really about how more women are joining the workforce, and how wonderful it is that more women are working in "male dominated" fields. The fact that more women are joining the workforce, however, tells us nothing about why men are leaving. Indeed, the CNN piece offered only one reason to...

How COVID Lockdowns Shifted Population Growth

by Ryan McMaken | Dec 27, 2022 | Featured Articles

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has frequently bragged that Florida is in high demand among people looking to relocate. In a new report released this week from the Census Bureau, it seems that he's been correct. According to the Bureau's report: After decades of rapid population increase, Florida now is the nation’s fastest-growing state for the first time since 1957, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2022 population estimates released today. Florida's population increased by 1.9% to 22,244,823 between 2021 and 2022, surpassing Idaho, the previous year’s fastest-growing state. In...

Self-Determination for Thee, But Not for Me

by Ryan McMaken | Dec 22, 2022 | Featured Articles

Opponents of secession in the United States often choose from several reasons as to why they think no member state of the United States should be allowed to separate from the rest of the confederation. Some antisecessionists say it’s bad for national security reasons. Others oppose secession for nationalistic reasons, declaring that “we”—whoever that is—shouldn’t “give up on America.” Antisecessionists Believe Self-Determination Leads to “Bad” Laws One of the most popular reasons to oppose secession is that opponents believe people will pass “bad” laws in places allowed to live under their...

Once Again, the Pentagon Failed an Audit (Shocker!)

by Ryan McMaken | Dec 8, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

In November, the Pentagon announced it had failed yet another audit. In spite of the fact that the Department of Defense has had years to get its act together, the Pentagon still doesn’t know how it spends or maintains its trillions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded assets and income. As Breaking Defense noted last month: The Pentagon has failed its annual audit for the fifth year in a row, an expected result that nonetheless represents something of a disappointment for an effort that officials hoped would continue steady, if incremental, year over year progress. . . . The Pentagon has...

Repeal All Laws Against the Phony Crime of ‘Seditious Conspiracy’

by Ryan McMaken | Dec 5, 2022 | Featured Articles

On Tuesday, a District of Columbia jury convicted Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs of seditious conspiracy in relation to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol building. Three other defendants were acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other felonies. Convictions of seditious conspiracy represent a political victory—not just a legal one—for those who have long insisted that the January 6 riot was no mere riot, but an organized armed rebellion of some sort. This claim has been key in the administration's ongoing vague claim that "democracy"—however defined—is somehow "at...

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