The point of no return may have been reached. The effects of the government-mandated shutdowns due to Covid-19 on businesses—especially small businesses—may not be known for months, even decades, but anyone who is paying attention is beginning to realize we are...
Economics
Economic Disaster: Deficit Skyrockets As Unemployment Freezes
by Ryan McMaken | Jul 18, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles
New tax revenue data released by the Treasury Department on Monday shows that tax revenue further worsened in June (compared year over year) from May's already cratering total. On the plus side, neither May nor June has returned to April's historic plunge in revenue....
June Was One of the Most Expensive Months On Record
by Michael Maharrey | Jul 16, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles
The federal budget deficit in the month of June totaled nearly the entire 2019 fiscal year shortfall and would rank sixth largest-ever if it were a yearly deficit. The June deficit came in at $864.1 billion dollars, according to the latest Treasury Department report....
How Fed Policy Could Cause More Riots
by Ron Paul | Jul 16, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly both recently denied that the Federal Reserve’s policies create economic inequality. Unfortunately for Powell, Daly, and other Fed promoters, a cursory look at the Fed’s operations shows...
What Paul Krugman Gets Wrong About The $600 Unemployment Bonus
by Bradley Thomas | Jul 12, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles
The federal government’s program of supplemental unemployment benefits of up to $600 per week, as provided for in the CARES Act, is set to expire at the end of July. Whether or not to extend this program is setting up to become a contentious political battle mere...
How State Regulations Perpetuate Overpriced Housing
by Mitchell Harvey and Tam Alex | Jul 9, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles
In Economic Facts and Fallacies (2011), Thomas Sowell argues that housing regulation and zoning laws, not markets, are to blame for the modern scourge of unaffordable housing. Sowell is still right. Government housing regulations have exacerbated construction costs,...
How the U.S. Government Debased My Coin Collection
by Jim Bovard | Jul 5, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles
Old coins vaccinated me against trusting politicians long before I grew my first scruffy beard. I began collecting coins when I was eight years old in 1965, the year President Lyndon Johnson began eliminating all the silver in new dimes, quarters, and half dollars....
Exposing Jerome Powell’s Lies About the Fed and Inequality
by Bradley Thomas | Jun 25, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles
If the heads of the Federal Reserve are to be believed, Fed policies do not make wealth inequality worse. When asked recently if the Fed’s policies widen inequality, San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly stated without reservation: “Not in my judgment.”...