Let's hear no more about America First! It's a fraud, a cover for collectivist nationalism, and a distraction from what matters. (It also looks like camouflage for Trump Family First, but let's take it at face value for now.) On foreign policy, America First does not...
Economics
British-American Trade Deal Raises Questions About U.K. Food Standards
by Patrick Carroll | May 13, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles
President Donald Trump announced a new trade deal between the United States and United Kingdom on Thursday that would drop certain trade barriers between the two countries. Though the details are still fuzzy, some of the main industries involved are agriculture, the...
TGIF: On the Importance of Undesigned Order
by Sheldon Richman | May 9, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian approach to economics, was not the first or last thinker to see similarities between a society and a living organism, suggesting the existence of undesigned, spontaneous order. The names Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith, before...
What Trump Misunderstands About William McKinley
by Patrick Carroll | May 8, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles
It’s no secret that one of Donald Trump’s favorite U.S. presidents is William McKinley, who led the country from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. Indeed, Trump recently changed the official name of Denali back to Mount McKinley in honor of the late president. In...
Pension Problems and Socialist ‘Solutions’
by Owen Ashworth | May 7, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has provided yet another weapon for the socialists to wield in their war against free markets. The IMF published a report with the suggestion that the Baby Boomer generation could work into their 70s to save the economy: “70 is...
America Should Bolt From the World Bank and IMF
by Jim Bovard | Apr 28, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent complained on Wednesday that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are suffering from “mission creep.” But Bessent announced that the Trump administration will be “doubling down” on supporting the largest...
TGIF: More on Menger and Value
by Sheldon Richman | Apr 25, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Consumer goods are also called finished goods. The products we buy at the supermarket and other retail stores have, in less finished form, passed through many stages (including distribution), reaching back to the original factors of production: land and labor. Land...
A Federal Reserve Unbound
by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Apr 24, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles
For more than three decades, the Federal Reserve has steadily expanded its role in the American economy. From a relatively narrow mandate as a lender of last resort to commercial banks, to inflation and employment targeting, it now operates as a systemic backstop for...